God the Father with Singing and Music-Making Angels
Sizes
One complex, one multi-part accession: the KMSKA holds it as 778-780 and it is sold whole. Three sheets, one edition, $569 — the printed images hang level within 0%.
Three panels that stood above the high altar of Santa María la Real at Nájera: God the Father enthroned at the centre, vested for the liturgy in alb, jewelled cope and tiara, a crystal globe in his hand with the Cross reflected in it; on either wing, angels singing and playing, dressed as deacons and acolytes, soft strings and loud winds together as only feast days allowed. Prior Gonzalo de Cabredo ordered it from Flanders in 1483 and died having paid a fraction of its 239,383 maravedís; installed 1494, the year Memling died. In Antwerp the three span 672 cm.
All three panels are 165 cm tall on the wall in Antwerp, so a tier is only honest if the PRINTED images hang level. At 24×36 each image is 24.0 in high and they do, exactly. The hung image measures 95.9 inches across - close to eight feet - which is worth saying plainly before anyone buys three sheets expecting a mantelpiece.
Sources
- Object description: crystal globe with cross symbolizing dominion; tiara; red cope embroidered in gold thread, pearls, precious stones
- Psalm 150 as the organizing scheme for the wings' instruments
- 'Hans Memling's Nájera altarpiece: new documentary evidence'
- KMSKA, Antwerp, object page for 'God the Father with Singing and Music-Making Angels' (companion to inv. 779)
Printed on demand as one edition. The whole image is printed on every sheet — never cropped to fit — so each panel carries an archival margin.