Cornelis Engelbrechtsen

(Also called ENGELBERTS and ENGELBRECHT, and now more usually spelt ENGELBRECHTSZ).

Dutch painter, b. at Leyden, 1468; d. there 1533; is believed to have been identical with a certain Cornelis de Hollandere who was a member of the Guild of St. Luke at Antwerp in 1492. He is said to have been the first artist in Holland who painted in oils, and to have been a profound student of the works of Jan Van Eyck. His principal paintings were executed in Leyden and for a long time preserved in that city, which still possesses in its picture gallery his large “Crucifixion”, with wings representing the Sacrifice of Abraham and the Brazen Serpent, and a “Pietà” containing six scenes from the Life of Christ. There is an important “Crucifixon” by him at Amsterdam, removed from the convent of St. Bridget at Utrecht, a “Madonna and Child” in the London National Gallery, and a “Crucifixion” in the Munich Gallery, and there are two double pictures at Antwerp. However, most of his religious works were destroyed in Holland during the iconoclastic movement in the sixteenth century. He has been declared to have been the master of Lucas Van Leyden, but nothing very definite is known on this matter. Many of his pictures are signed with a curious mark resembling a figure 4 supported upon two swords, and others with a sort of star. He had two sons: Cornelis, known as Kunst (1493-1544), and Luke, known as Kok, born 1495. The latter came over to England during the reign of Henry VIII, and a picture signed by him is in Lord De L’Isle’s collection at Penshurst.