Dictionary of


Art  &  Artist



 

Jan van Amstel

 

Amstel, Jan van [Aertsz., Jan; Hollander, Jan de]

(b Amsterdam, c. 1500; d Antwerp, c. 1542). South Netherlandish painter of Dutch birth. He was probably the brother of Pieter Aertsen and was married to the sister-in-law of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. He was made a freeman of the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp in 1528 and a citizen of that city in 1536. Lampsonius and van Mander praised him as a landscape artist. According to Lampsonius, he ‘enjoyed painting landscapes well, instead of painting portraits, human figures and the Deity badly’. Van Mander described his very large panels, which sold well in the markets of Brabant and Flanders, as well as his unusual technique of painting with a light wash so that the underlying ground colour showed through (apparently influential on Pieter Bruegel the elder).

Landscape with the Flight into Egypt

Christ and the Two Pilgrims on the Way to Emmaus- 1540