Donatress

The gallery at Brussels has, by-the-by, recently acquired a small Madonna which is palpably by the same hand as the donatress at Bruges and the Moulins altarpiece.

In contemplating the triptychs and altar-screens, Hughes dislodged from his mind the opulence of their colouring and the glow of their romance for the sake of realizing more vividly the pathos that emanated from the figures of the donators standing with folded hands, and the donatresses with their cornelian eyes, of whom no memory survived save that of these portraits.

In Flanders the donor was usually sinister, as in the Martin Nieuwenhove diptych, the Fogg diptych, and Mr. Philip Lehman’s panel (Fig. 3) of a Donatress with St. Anne and the Virgin.

The portfolio will be emailed to you, zipped, beginning March 10th and will include Thanks.Txt, a list of all the donatresses (either their email addresses, their names, or an alias - some of us are shy!)