Donne Triptych

The Donne Triptych (or Donne Altarpiece) is a hinged-triptych altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Hans Memling. The painting was created around 1478 for the soldier, courtier and diplomat Sir John Donne. The triptych comprises three panels that include five individual paintings. The central interior panel depicts the Virgin and Child, donor portraits of Sir John Donne, the patron, along with his wife and daughter, as well as Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Barbara, the two double-sided wings include images of Saint John the Baptist, Saint John the Evangelist on the interior sides of the wings, and Saint Christopher and Saint Anthony Abbot on the two exteriors of the wings.

Art historians have debated whether the altarpiece was painted in the early 1480s, around the same time Memling painted the Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara, in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. An earlier date of sometime in the late 1470s is possible, at the time he completed the similar St John Altarpiece, or it may have been painted as a precursor to that altarpiece.

The donor, Sir John Donne of Kidwelly, was a Picardy-born Welsh diplomat for the House of York who visited Bruges at least once, in 1468 to attend Charles the Bold and Margaret of York's wedding; how he became acquainted with Memling is as uncertain as when he commissioned the triptych.

The triptych is in the collection of the National Gallery, London.