The “Master of the Death of Mary,” to whose school belongs the _Descent
from the Cross_, with a predella representing _The Last Supper_, and a
lunette with _St. Francis receiving the Stigmata_ (No. 2738), has been
identified by Wauters and Aldenhoven with the early-sixteenth-century
Flemish painter Joos van Cleef the Elder, and belongs to the Antwerp
rather than the Cologne school. The “Master of St. Severin,” to whom
the official Catalogue ascribes the two _Scenes from the Life of St.
Ursula_ (Nos. 2738C and 2738D), was probably a Flemish painter who
worked at Cologne at the beginning of the sixteenth century. But the
two panels at the Louvre, which were formerly at the Cluny Museum, are
not from his brush. They are the work of his pupil, the “Master of the
Ursula Legend,” and belong to a series of which other panels can be
seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum and at Cologne.
The first definite name in the annals of the Cologne school is
that of Bartolomäus Bruyn (_c._ 1493-1555), who was a follower of
Joos van Cleef but subsequently became completely imbued with the
Italian spirit. His portraits, in which he remained more faithful to
the tradition of his country, are of greater significance than his
religious compositions, and closely resemble those by Joos van Cleef;
but the _Portrait of a Man with a White Cross on his Breast_ (No. 2702)
is only a school picture of indifferent quality.