Portrait of Maria Portinari

Portrait of Maria Portinari is tempera and oil on wood painting by Hans Memling, dating from c 1470-72, and housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York . It is paired with the Portrait of Tommaso Portinari, her husband and an ambitious branch manager of the Medici bank in Bruges,^[1] and patron of Flemish art.^[2] Maria would have been around 14 years old at the time of the portrait was commissioned, either the year of her marriage in 1470 or shortly after.^[3]

The two portraits were probably originally the wings of a triptych, with a central Madonna and Child which is now lost.

The half length portrait shows Maria Portinari (born Maria Maddalena Baroncelli)^[4] in three quarters view, turned to the left. She is shown against on flat and dark background. Her hands are clasped in prayer. Her body is is slightly undersized compared to the head, a common device of the time, also utilised by Rogier van der Weyden and Petrus Christus. Her elbows rest on a unseen parapet that coincides with the lower edge of the frame. Her hair is shaved back, in order to achieve the high forehead look fashionable at the time. She wears the same necklace studderd with pearls, rubies and sapphires, as seen in Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Altarpiece in the Uffizi, Florence.^[5] The dark dress has a wide neckline and is lined at hem of the sleeve. Portinari has dark eyes, a strong nose, full lips, and a pointed chin.

It was donated to the Metropolitan by Benjamin Altman in 1913,^[5] who had acquired the pair in London in 1910.