Resumen de New Documentation for the Portinari Altar-Piece
When Giorgio Vasari credited Jan van Eyck and his countrymen with the early development of oil painting, his commentary on the medium included a short synopsis of Netherlandish painting. It is in this context that we find the earliest simultaneous references both to Hugo van der Goes and to one of his still-extant paintings. The remark is frustratingly brief: 'Ugo d'Anversa, chefe la tavola di Santa Maria Nuova di Fiorenza' ('Hugo of Antwerp, who made the painting at S. Maria Nuova in Florence').' Yet Vasari's marginal comment made the Portinari altar-piece (Fig.29) the touchstone for all subsequent attributions to Van der Goes.
