Albert Simonsz was a historical painter, born at
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...
in 1523, told
in 1604 that he had been a scholar of
Jan Mostaert
Jan Mostaert (c. 1475 – 1552/1553) was a Dutch Renaissance painter who is known mainly for his religious subjects and portraits. One of his most famous creations was the ''Landscape with an Episode from the Conquest of America''.
There are v ...
60 years previously when Mostaert himself was already an old man of 70. Van Mander noted his remark because Simonsz also said that Mostaert had claimed he had never heard of Ouwater (or
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1465 – c. 1495), also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, Gerrit Gerritsz, Gheertgen, Geerrit, Gheerrit, or any other diminutive form of Gerald, was an Early Netherlandish painter from the northern Lo ...
). The 18th-century writer Jacobus de Jongh was the first to extrapolate Simonsz' birth year from his statements to Karel van Mander. Simonsz clearly lived to a great age, but the exact year of his death after 1604 is not recorded. Though no known works survive,
Hessel Miedema
Hessel Miedema (21 January 1929, Sneek – 14 April 2019) was a leading Dutch art historian and the world authority on Karel van Mander.
Biography
He was born in Sneek, but grew up in Amsterdam, where he studied art history at the University of A ...
in his more recent edition of the Schilder-boeck wonders whether he isn't the same "Aelbert symonssen" mentioned in a document in the Haarlem archives who was paid 15 florins in 1592–1593 for making several copies of maps of Haarlem after the one by mayor Thomas Thomassen, and who was also paid 25 florins for making one copy of a map made in 1570 of the boundary of Rhineland after Joost Janssen of Amsterdam.
[Miedema, Vol II, p. 259]
References
Sources
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1523 births
1600s deaths
Dutch Renaissance painters
Painters from Haarlem
{{Netherlandish-painter-stub