Jan Wellens de Cock or Jan de Cock (c. 1460/1480 – in or before 1521) was a

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

painter, woodblock artist and

draftsman A drafter (also draughtsman / draughtswoman in British and Commonwealth English, draftsman / draftswoman, drafting technician, or CAD technician in American and Canadian English) is an engineering technician who makes detailed technical drawi ...

of the

Northern Renaissance The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps, developing later than the Italian Renaissance, and in most respects only beginning in the last years of the 15th century. It took different forms in the vari ...

active in Antwerp.Jan Wellens de Cock
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

Recent discoveries and a re-evaluation of the links between the works attributed to Wellens de Cock and those of contemporaneous artists of Leiden have caused a large portion and potentially all of the works formerly attributed to him to be re-attributed to one or more anonymous artists active in Antwerp or Leiden referred to by the

notname In art history, a (, "name of necessity" or "contingency name") is an invented name given to an artist whose identity has been lost. The practice arose from the need to give such artists and their typically untitled or generically titled works a ...

Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock or Master J. Kock or some other anonymous artists believed to have worked in Leiden in the studio or immediate circle of

Cornelis Engebrechtsz Cornelis Engebrechtsz., also known as Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. (c.1462–1527) was an early Dutch painter. He was born and died in Leiden, and is considered the first important painter from that city.

.M. Balm, 2010 ''Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock (attributed to), Triptych with the Crucifixion (centre panel), St Peter and a Male Donor (inner left wing), St James and a Female Donor (inner right wing), St Christopher and the Christ Child on the Road of Life'' (outer wings) Leiden, Antwerp, c. 1525
in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online catalogue entry at the

Rijksmuseum The Rijksmuseum () is the national museum of the Netherlands dedicated to Dutch arts and history and is located in Amsterdam. The museum is located at the Museum Square in the borough of Amsterdam South, close to the Van Gogh Museum, the S ...

, AmsterdamPseudo Jan Wellens de Cock, ''Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child in an extensive river landscape''
at Sotheby's

Life

Little is known about the artist's life and career. Traditionally the artist's likely place of birth was identified as

Leiden Leiden ( ; ; in English language, English and Archaism, archaic Dutch language, Dutch also Leyden) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Nethe ...

in the

County of Holland The County of Holland was a Imperial State, state of the Holy Roman Empire from its inception until 1433. From 1433 onward it was part of the Burgundian Netherlands, from 1482 part of the Habsburg Netherlands and from 1581 onward the leading pro ...

. This was based on stylistic similarities of the works attributed to him with paintings by

who worked in Leiden. As those works are no longer attributed to the artist, there is no longer a basis for the presumed birth or origin in Leiden. In 1883 Frans Jozef Peter van den Branden identified the Jan de Cock mentioned several times in the records of the Antwerp

Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was iden ...

with the 'Jan Wellens, alias Cock' recorded in the

aldermen An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law with similar officials existing in the Netherlands (wethouder) and Belgium (schepen). The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking membe ...

's registers of Antwerp in 1492. The art historian

Max Jakob Friedländer Max Jakob Friedländer (5 July 1867 in Berlin – 11 October 1958 in Amsterdam) was a German-Jewish museum curator and art historian. He was a specialist in Early Netherlandish painting and the Northern Renaissance, who volunteered at the Kupfers ...

, referring to the artist as 'Jan de Cock', identified him with the 'Jan Van Leyen' (Jan of Leiden) who became a master in the Antwerp

in the guild year 1503–1504.M.J Friedländer, 'Jan Wellens de Cock'
Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 29 (1918), p. 67-74 Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius (ed.), ''De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde''
Volume 1, Antwerp, Julius de Koninck, 1871, p. 58 No further information about this Jan van Leyen exists to support an identification with Jan de Cock. On 6 August 1502 Jan Wellens de Cock married Clara van Beeringen, the daughter of Peter van Beeringen. Their two sons played an important role in the cultural life of the Habsburg Netherlands in the first half of the 16th century:

Matthys Cock Matthys Cock or Matthijs Wellens de Cock (c. 1509/10 – 1540/1548) was a Flemish landscape painter and draughtsman. He is known for his landscapes, marine art and architectural drawings.landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

artist and

Hieronymus Cock Hieronymus Cock, or Hieronymus Wellens de Cock (1518 – 3 October 1570) was a Flemish painter and etcher as well as a publisher and distributor of prints.

(1518–1570) originally trained as a painter and landscape artist before becoming a prolific publisher and printmaker. The records of the Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp record the following pupils of Jan de Cock: a 'Loduwyck' in 1505 and a Wouter Key in 1516. Jan Wellens de Cock was probably identical to the 'Jan de Cock' that worked as a servant to the guild of 'Onze-Lieve-Vrouw Lof' for which he executed many commissions over the next few years. In 1507 de Cock was paid for painting angels and restoring the Holy Ghost at the altar of this guild in

Antwerp Cathedral The Cathedral of Our Lady () is a Roman Catholic cathedral in Antwerp, Belgium. Today's seat of the Diocese of Antwerp started in 1352 and, although the first stage of construction was ended in 1521, has never been 'completed'. It was construct ...

. He also worked on commissions for the brotherhood of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Lof in Antwerp. These works were probably lost in the iconoclastic destruction of mainly religious images and statues known as the ''

beeldenstorm ''Beeldenstorm'' () in Dutch and ''Bildersturm'' in German (roughly translatable from both languages as 'attack on the images or statues') are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th centu ...

'' that raged in parts of the

Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...

in 1566. In 1511 the guild paid de Cock for cutting a woodblock for a print to use in the guild's procession. This is the only indication that de Cock, to whom several prints have been attributed, was indeed active as a block cutter. Jan de Cock Museo Thyssen

In 1520 Jan de Cock served as a dean of the Guild of Saint Luke, together with

Joos van Cleve Joos van Cleve (; also Joos van der Beke; c. 1485–1490 – 1540/1541) was a leading painter active in Antwerp from his arrival there around 1511 until his death in 1540 or 1541. Within Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, he combines the tr ...

.Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius (ed.), p. 94 His death date and place are not documented. His wife Clara van Beeringen is mentioned as a widow in 1521 in the reports of the brotherhood of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Lof in Antwerp, which means that he must have died in 1520 or 1521.

Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock and Master J. Kock

Friedländer constructed an entire oeuvre around the artist based on an anonymous print depicting ''Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child''. Underneath the image the print bears the Latin expression ‘Pictum J. Kock’ (painted by J. Kock), which suggests that the print was carved after a painting by a 'J. Cock'. Friedländer identified that painting as the painting of the same subject and the same content which in the first half of the 20th century was in the collection of Friedrich von Bissing in Munich (and which was most recently sold on 8 December 2004 at Sotheby's, London). While no works signed by Jan Wellens de Cock have been located, Friedländer gave him a few small panels with saints and religious subjects starting from the aforementioned print depicting ''Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child''. Friedländer pointed to the apparent influence on these works of both landscape painter

Joachim Patinir Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier ( – 5 October 1524), was a Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, Flemish Renaissance painter of History painting, history and Landscape painting, landscape subjects. He was Flanders, Flemish, from the ar ...

active in Antwerp and

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...

active in

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

. He further noted the stylistic similarities to paintings from the school of Leiden painter Cornelis Engebrechtsz and therefore surmised that Jan de Cock was originally from Leiden. The works he attributed to the artist also showed parallels with the works of the

Antwerp Mannerists Antwerp Mannerism refers to the style of a group of largely anonymous painters active in the southern Netherlands, principally in Antwerp, in roughly the first three decades of the 16th century. The movement marks the tail end of Early Netherl ...

. Referring to the artist as 'Jan de Cock', Friedländer surmised he was possibly the 'Jan Van Leyen' (Jan of Leiden) who became a master in the Antwerp

in the guild year 1503–1504 or that he had become a master in 1500, a year in which the Guild failed to register its new masters in its records. De Calvarieberg Rijksmuseum SK-A-4921

Friedländer's attributions were questioned by other art historian who highlighted the similarities of the attributed works with works by presumed pupils of Cornelis Engebrechtsz of Leiden. In addition, when it was discovered that Jan Welllens de Cock had died no later than 1521, many attributions to him could no longer be sustained as these attributed works were datable to the 1520s. Many of the works that Friedländer attributed to de Cock have since been reassigned by Dutch art historians

Nicolaas Beets Nicolaas Beets (13 September 1814 – 13 March 1903) was a Dutch theologian, writer and poet. He published also under the pseudonym Hildebrand. Life Nicolaas Beets was born in Haarlem, the son of a pharmacist. From 1833 till 1839 he studie ...

, Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff, Jan Piet Filedt Kok and others, to some of Engebrechtsz's pupils, such as his sons Cornelis Cornelisz and Lucas Cornelisz named De Cock. Ludwig von Baldass distinguished two different hands in the body of work: Jan de Cock and an anonymous master he gave the

the Master of the Vienna Dismissal of Hagar. Art historian Walter S. Gibson subsequently attributed the works that Baldass had given to Jan de Cock to an anonymous master he gave the

the Master of the Vienna Lamentation, and proposed the hypothesis that both of these anonymous masters had been pupils and assistants of Cornelis Engebrechtsz, and could possibly have been his aforementioned sons. There is currently a growing art-historical consensus that the paintings attributed to Jan Wellens de Cock over the years were in fact executed by different hands, and probably not by the Antwerp artist Jan de Cock. There is no certainty that they originated in either Antwerp or Leiden. As none of the works can be confidently linked to the Antwerp painter Jan de Cock, art historians have proposed to catalogue them under the notname Pseudo Jan Wellens de Cock or under Master J. Kock (based on the name of the aforementioned print).

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cock, Jan Wellens De 16th-century Flemish painters Dutch Renaissance painters Flemish Renaissance painters Woodcut designers Painters from Antwerp 1480s births 1521 deaths