Tommaso Portinari managed the Bruges branch of the Medici Bank from 1465 to 1478. In 1470, when he was about forty-two, he married fourteen year old Maria Maddalena Baroncelli. Probably on this occasion he commissioned Hans Memling to paint a portable triptych with the Virgin and Child on the center panel and portraits of himself and his wife in the wings.
The magical ritual shown here by an anonymous artist from the lower Rhine in the 1470s is not supposed to incite love, but to reveal to the maid her future husband, shown here as entering the door. Rituals like these were common at the time and place and not considered witchcraft. Dozens of recipes have survived. The plants on the floor, the contents of the box, the nakedness of the caster, and maybe some of the other items in the room are all part of the spell.
The anatomy is remarkable in being so completely off. The girl looks like two broken statues glued together. Both the part above and below the elbow are fine on their own, but they don’t match. Compare the three graces in the Palazzo Schifanoia. They are contemporaries, but Francesco del Cossa got it, mostly, right. Correct anatomy is an art that was rediscovered south of the Alps first, the same is not necessarily true for realistic portraiture.
Of course, what we are looking here is an early pin-up, one of the first. It is a small painting, about the size of a book (24×18cm), meant to be enjoyed in private, not shown off. This type of picture gained popularity in the North, about the same time Florence and Ferrara rediscovered ancient mythology.
In the years 1469/70, Cosimo Tura and Francesco del Cossa painted some allegorical frescoes for the Este family in their Palazzo Schifanoia right outside the walls of Ferrara. This is a detail from the background of the Allegory of April, showing the three Graces, the oldest surviving post-classical rendering of this subject.
The second small picture of Heracles Antonio Pollaiuolo painted for Lorenzo il Magnifico, of equal height, fighting the lion, seems to be lost completely. Heracles fighting the Hydra is in the Uffizi, and even in better condition than Antaeus. Vasari writes about it:
The third picture, wherein Hercules is slaying the Hydra, is something truly marvellous, particularly the serpent, which he made so lively and so natural in coloring that nothing could be made more lifelike. In that beast are seen venom, fire, ferocity, rage, and such vivacity, that he deserves to be celebrated and to be closely imitated in this by all good craftsmen.
Antonio Pollaiuolo painted three small pictures of Heracles for Lorenzo il Magnifico, each about 17cm high. One of them seems to be lost, the other two are in the Uffizi. Vasari writes:
The first of these, which is slaying Antaeus, is a very beautiful figure, in which the strength of Hercules as he crushes the other is seen most vividly, for the muscles and nerves of that figure are all strained in the struggle to destroy Antaeus. The head of Hercules shows the gnashing of the teeth so well in harmony with the other parts, that even the toes of his feet are raised in the effort. Nor did he take less pains with Antaeus, who, crushed in the arms of Hercules, is seen sinking and losing all his strength, and giving up his breath through his open mouth.
Antaeus was the son of Poseidon and Gaia, invincible as long as his feet touched the ground. Heracles, on discovering his secret, lifted him up and crushed him in his arms.
Vivat! Crescat! Floreat! 
