Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen

Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen was one of the first important painters to work in Amsterdam. His religious panels are full of detail: rich costumes, small figures scattered through landscapes, and bright, clear colour, still close to late Gothic art but open to the new Renaissance forms.

He was born in Oostzaan, north of Amsterdam, before 1470 and ran a busy workshop in Amsterdam until his death in 1533. It produced paintings, around two hundred woodcuts, book illustrations and designs for stained glass. Jan van Scorel was one of his pupils. The Rijksmuseum holds his Adoration of the Magi of 1517.

His Christ Appearing to Mary Magdalen as a Gardener, from 1507, is one of his best known works. Look for the gardener’s hat and spade, and the little background scenes that tell the rest of the Easter story in the landscape behind.