Quinten Massys

Qinten Massys - Training as a blacksmith

Quinten Massys was born in Leuven around 1466. The son of a blacksmith, he was to join his older brother in his father's trade and was instructed accordingly by him. The extent to which individual works in Leuven that have survived to this day can actually be attributed to Quinten Massys is disputed by researchers. There are even more doubts about the beautiful story of how Massys moved from craftsmanship to artwork: love for a painter's daughter is said to have prompted the change. Another explanation sounds more prosaic but more credible: as Quinten Massys was already overshadowed by his older brother in his father's workshop and was so weak due to an illness that the hard work of blacksmithing became almost impossible for him, he decided to pursue a career as a painter. Mattys had already learnt to draw during his training as a blacksmith, but nothing is known about his training as a painter.

One of the most famous masters of his time

Due to various peculiarities of his style, Quinten Massys is considered a self-taught artist who learnt his art on the basis of close observation of other painters and nature itself. In 1491, Massys moved to Antwerp, which, as the most important trading centre in the Netherlands, was increasingly becoming a centre of attraction for artists due to its growing prosperity. Here, Massys was accepted into the Guild of St Luke and established himself as one of the first painters in the city. As such, he cultivated contacts with some of the most famous masters of his time, including such illustrious names as Hans Holbein the Younger, whilst Albrecht Dürer visited Massys’ workshop when he was in Antwerp in 1520. He was also the godfather of the children of Joachim Patinir, who is said to have assisted Massys with the backgrounds of some of his paintings.

A masterly sense for faces

Quinten Massys is considered the most influential master of the Antwerp School in the 16th century. He initially devoted himself primarily to religious themes, and his first characteristic work is considered to be the altarpiece The Holy Family for St Pieterskerk in his hometown of Leuven. Much more famous, however, is the oil painting The Lamentation of Christ, which was commissioned by the carpenters' guild for Antwerp Cathedral. Quinten Massy's great strength is particularly evident here in the expressive faces of the mourners and the dead Christ. His flair for faces brought the artist many commissions as a portrait painter, and under the influence of his role models Jan Mabuse and Lucas van Leyden, he painted portraits of important personalities such as the scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam. His most famous painting is probably A Grotesque Old Woman, which is often seen as a caricature and served the author Lewis Carroll as a model for the Queen of Hearts in his famous children's book Alice in Wonderland. Massys himself was inspired by a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

Quinten Massys died in Antwerp in 1530, most probably from the plague.