Jan Jansz Mostaert

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From the Biography of Jan Janz Mostaert published online by the Rijksmuseum:

https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-4986/catalogue-entry

Jan Jansz Mostaert (Haarlem c. 1474 - Haarlem 1552/53)

Jan Jansz Mostaert was born in Haarlem around 1474 to the mill owner Jan Jansz Mostaert and his wife Alijt Dircxdr. He married Angnyese (Agnes) Martijnsdr, the widow of Claes Claesz Suycker, shortly before 8 June 1498. She died before July 1532. They came from fairly well-to-do families, and owned several houses in Haarlem. Jan Mostaert is documented in Haarlem almost every year from 1498 to 1516 and from 1526 to 1552. He died there between April 1552 and April 1553.

According to Van Mander, Mostaert trained with the Haarlem painter Jacob Jansz (who may have been the Master of the Brunswick Diptych). He was already being mentioned as a painter (‘scilder’) in 1498, and in 1502 he is recorded as a member of the local Guild of St Luke, of which he was dean in 1507 and 1543-44. Some pupils (‘leer-junck’) of his are recorded in the guild registers of 1502-07.

There are documented commissions for the wings of a tabernacle altarpiece in the St Bavokerk in Haarlem (1500-05), for the wings of an altarpiece in St Elizabeth’s Hospital (1550), and for the high altarpiece in the church in Hoorn (1549-50). None of those works has survived.

Although Jan Mostaert was appointed a ‘painctre aux honneurs’ in March 1518 by Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), regent of the Netherlands, and presented her with a painting of Philibert de Savoie in January 1521,9 there is no evidence that he was her court painter, so there is no reason to trust Van Mander’s statement that he worked at Margaret’s court in Mechelen for 18 years.

Van Mander also says that Mostaert was the portrait painter of the Dutch nobility, but unfortunately none of the paintings he describes can be securely identified with extant works.