A Prize of War: A Painting of Fifteenth Century Merchants

There is in the city of Danzig on the Baltic Sea a medieval painting which is of unusual interest in the history of business. It is an altarpiece, the “Last Judgment†by Hans Memling, the inimitable fifteenth-century artist of the Low Countries. Besides being a great work of art, this picture is in a sense an important business record. It is, moreover, in a real way a product of business; its origin was intimately tied in with international mercantile activity in the fifteenth century. War prevented the “Last Judgment†from occupying the place for which it was intended, and wars have continued to give it an insecure existence. The present conflict in Europe may result in another removal, possibly back to Bruges, the place of the activity of those medieval business men whom it is said to commemorate.