St John Altarpiece (Memling) St John Altarpiece (Memling) The St John Altarpiece (sometimes the Triptych of the two Saints John or the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist) is a large oil-on-oak hinged-triptych altarpiece completed around 1479 by the Early Netherlandish master painter Hans Memling. It was commissioned in the mid-1470s in Bruges for the Old St. John's Hospital ("Sint-Janshospitaal") during the building of a new apse. It is signed and dated 1479 on the original frame – its date of installation – and is today at the hospital in the Memling museum. The altarpiece consists of five paintings
Altarpiece itself and sometimes in front of it. Much smaller private altarpieces, often portable, were made for wealthy individuals to use at home, often as folding diptychs or triptychs for safe transport. In the Middle Ages very small diptychs or triptychs carved in ivory or other materials were popular. Altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also