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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 24574710, member: 128351&quot;]I am almost the only one to post in this tread I myself started but I like that too mutch. Please excuse me.</p><p><br /></p><p>There was another extremely interesting picture posted in a similar 2019 thread by [USER=4910]@willieboyd2[/USER] (Hi ! thanks for doing it!). It was about a 15th c. Flemish panel :</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1558949[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Hans Memling, <i>Man with a Roman coin</i>, wooden panel, 23 x 31 cm (that&#039;s a little more than an A4 sheet), c. 1470s. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp.</p><p><br /></p><p>In Belgium Walloons use the expression &quot;Flemish Primitives&quot; as an example of redundancy. Hans Memling was one of these Northern Renaissance painters we today call Flemish Primitives. This portrait represents some unknown individual. From his clothing, specialists think he might be Italian or of Italian descent, and that the Roman coin, the leaves at the bottom of the picture and the palm tree in the background must be symbols suggesting his name or emblem.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1558950[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>The coin is a sestertius of Nero, and is particularly well represented with a lot of details (don&#039;t forget the whole picture is the size of an A4 sheet of paper!), a remarkable example of numismatic realism. The portrait style even suggests it is a sestertius minted at Lyons, though there is no tiny globe under it. But the legend is grossly blundered : NERO CLAVD CAESAR AVG <b>GE</b> P M TR P IMP P P. It should be GER and not just GE, and I think there is no known obverse die with <i>GE(rmanicus)</i>...([USER=89514]@curtislclay[/USER], if you see this post, could you confirm?).</p><p><br /></p><p>It is possible Hans Memling did it on purpose. These 15th c. Flemish painters liked to put puzzles and enigmas in their pictures. The Spanish writer Arturo Perez Reverte made it the plot of one of his most famous thrillers, <i>The Flanders Panel</i> (<i>La tabla de Flandes</i>, 1990).</p><p><br /></p><p>Who is this man? Why is he holding a sestertius of Nero? What is the meaning of those leaves at the bottom of the picture - and what kind of leaves? Ivy? </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1558955[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Do the palm-tree, the three swans, the horseman riding by the water, the winding road to a castle on top of a hill have a special signification?</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1558956[/ATTACH] </p><p>And what about the stork? Yes, look carefully just under the cloud in the top left corner of the panel, there is a flying stork :</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1558957[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>... and what does that <b>GE</b> signify?...[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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