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Hugo van der Goes

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Hugo van der Goes (c. 1440-1482) was a Flemish painter.

He entered the painters' guild of Ghent in 1467. He was later elected dean of the guild. While serving as the dean he decorated the town of Ghent in celebration of the marriage between Charles the Bold and Margaret York, a move that would later earn him employment from the couple. Suffering from a mental illness possibly caused by his relationship with Elizabeth Wijtens, a sister of the Order of the Our Lady of the Rose of Jericho in Brussels who had served as his model for a now-lost fresco of The Meeting of David and Abigail, he retired to the Red Cloister near Brussels around 1478 in the hopes that living in the monastery would help him overcome his depression. He was considered a lay member of the cloister. Van der Goes attempted suicide around 1480, and died two years later.

His most famous work is the Portinari Triptych (c. 1475, Uffizi, Florence), an altarpiece commissioned for the church of the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence by Tommaso Portinari, the representative of the Medici family in Bruges.


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