Joos van Cleve

Joos van Cleve was one of the leading painters in Antwerp in the early sixteenth century. He joined the fine detail of the Netherlandish tradition to new Renaissance ideas, and he often placed his religious scenes before wide, blue-green world landscapes.

He was born around 1485, probably in the Lower Rhine region, and trained with Jan Joest in Kalkar. He became a master in the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1511 and led a busy workshop there for the rest of his life. He painted altarpieces, devotional Madonnas and portraits, including Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England. His Death of the Virgin of 1520 is in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne. More than three hundred works are linked to him and his workshop. He died in Antwerp around 1540.

In The Death of the Virgin, look at how each apostle has a distinct face and task.