The influence of these painters and Dierick Bouts is seen in the rare
works of Geertgen tot S. Jans, or Gerard of Haarlem (1465-1493) whose
_Raising of Lazarus_ (No. 2563A) in this collection is an achievement
of the highest order, and was purchased as recently as 1902 for £4000
from Baron d’Albenas, after having been for many years in Spain. This
pupil or follower of the Ouwater master was a native of Leyden, and
worked at Haarlem. He took his name from the commandery of the Knights
of St. John at Haarlem for whom he worked, as we see from the careful
inscription, “_Gerardus Leydanus pictor ad S. Io. Baptist. Harlem
pinxt_,” on his triptych at Vienna.
Among his contemporaries were Cornelis Engelbrechtsen, who was born
in 1468 at Leyden, where he died in 1533, and Lucas van Leyden
(1494-1533). The latter played an important part as an engraver quite
as much as a painter in the university town of Leyden, which now
possesses his large _Last Judgment_ and became famous as the birthplace
of Rembrandt in 1606. The Louvre possesses no picture by either
Engelbrechtsen or Lucas van Leyden.
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (fl. 1470-1533) is also unrepresented
here. Portraits by painters in this group are often confused, as in
the case of the _Portrait of the Duke of East Friesland_, in the
Oldenburg Gallery, which has been attributed to both Lucas van Leyden
and Jacob Cornelisz. A pupil of the latter may have painted the _Cana
of Galilee_ (No. 2640C). It is safe to assign to “the Master of the
Female Half Figures,” the _Young Lady Reading_ (No. 2641C), which has
a close analogy with the well-known picture in the Harrach collection
at Vienna, representing half-length figures of three young ladies in
crimson velvet dresses cut square at the neck, and singing to the
accompaniment of a flute and a lute. The name of this painter is
not known, but his pictures, which are neither numerous nor of any
conspicuous merit, are easily recognisable.
To this period of transition and mediocre painting belongs Jan Scorel
(1495-1562), whose _Portrait of Paracelsus the Doctor_ (No. 2567A) is
inscribed:
“FORMOSO DOCTOR PARASELSUS,”
and is in every way superior to the _Portrait of a Man_ (No. 2641B),
which is labelled with the name of Scorel, but catalogued as being by
an unknown artist. From Scorel, a much travelled Dutch artist, who at
one time worked at Nuremburg with Albrecht Dürer and visited Venice
and the East, we naturally pass to Jan Mostaert of Haarlem. Mostaert
of Haarlem is unrepresented at the Louvre, a remark which equally well
applies to the anonymous “Pseudo-Mostaert,” who painted so much in his
style that a large number of inferior productions have been credited to
him from time to time. Pictures of this type vary so considerably that
the name “Pseudo-Mostaert” is little more than a generic designation
for unassignable Flemish and Dutch pictures of the middle of the
sixteenth century; such pictures bear some relationship to the _Christ
bearing His Cross_ (No. 2299), and the _Abraham’s Sacrifice_ (No.
2300), officially attributed to the little-known and quite negligible
painter Alart Claeszoon (1498-1564) of Leyden.