Jan Sanders van Hemessen

Background

Jan Sanders van Hemessen was born about 1500 in Hemiksem, Belgium.

Education

Jan van Hemessen was an apprentice of Hendrick van Cleve I in Antwerp, Belgium.

Career

Van Hemessen is believed to have worked early in his career at the royal court in Mechelen. Here he may have first encountered Jan Gossaert, a court painter, as well as the Master of the Legend of the Magdalen.

He also traveled to Italy early in his career, around 1520, but he was based in Antwerp between 1519 and 1550. After 1550 he may have moved to Haarlem. Van Hemessen painted several religious subjects, and many others may have been destroyed in the Beeldenstorm that swept through Antwerp in the year of his death.

Van Hemessen died in 1566 in Haarlem, Netherlands.

Achievements

• Jan van Hemessen was best known as a leading Renaissance painter who played an important role in the development of genre painting, through his large scenes with religious or worldly subjects, set in towns with contemporary dress and architecture. Besides, his style of portrait painting also played an important role in the popularity of portraiture in northern Europe from circa 1540 onwards. His best known portrait was the "Portrait of a Gentleman, Aged 34, before an Extensive Landscape".

Works

More photos

• painting

  • A Merry Company

  • Virgin and Child

  • Allegorical Scene

  • Christ

  • Jesus Summons Matthew to Leave the Tax Office

  • Jesus Summons Matthew to Leave the Tax Office

  • St. Jerome

  • Vanity

  • The Surgeon

  • Risky society

  • Judith

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son (detail)

  • San Girolamo in Preghiera

  • The Descent from the Cross

  • St. Jerome

  • Tarquin and Lucretia

  • Christ Carrying The Cross

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son (detail)

  • Tobias Restores his Father's Sight

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son (detail)

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son (detail)

  • Christ Driving Merchants from the Temple

  • Isaac Blessing Jacob

  • Parable of the Prodigal Son (detail)

  • The Mocking of Christ (detail)

  • St. Jerome praying before a rocky grotto

  • The Lamentation of Christ

  • Woman Weighing Gold

Membership

Jan van Hemessen joined the artist's Guild of Saint Luke as a master in Antwerp in 1524.

• Guild of Saint Luke , Belgium

  1524

Connections

Van Hemessen was married to Barbara de Fevre with whom he had two daughters: Christina Van Hemessen and Catharina van Hemessen. Jan Sanders van Hemessen trained his daughter Catharina who became a successful portrait painter. After his wife's death, he and his maid Betteken had an illegitimate son called Peeter. After the death of Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Betteken, Peeter was legitimised in 1579, at the age of 24.

Spouse:

Barbara de Fevre

Daughter:

Catharina van Hemessen

Son:

Peeter van Hemessen

Mistress:

Betteken

Daughter:

Christina Van Hemessen

References

• Jan Van Hemessen: An Antwerp Painter between Reform and Counter-Reform (Studies in Renaissance Art History; 3)
• Peintre Manieriste: Parmigianino, El Greco, Bartholomeus Spranger, Jan Sanders Van Hemessen, Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Andrea del Sarto