JOGS VAN CLEVE (c. 148o-154o), Flemish painter. His full name was Joos van der Beke van Cleve. He is now com monly accepted as the author of the pictures, formerly grouped under the name of the Master of the Death of the Virgin, and it is suggested that he was the pupil of Jan Joest of Haarlem, sometimes called of Calcar, the painter of the great altarpiece at Calcar. The earliest work ascribed to Joos, the two wings with Adam and Eve, dated 1507, in the Louvre, show marked affinities with Joest's style. Joos is first mentioned in 1511, when he entered the Antwerp guild as a master painter. He soon received commissions from Cologne. The date 1515 is on one of the two well-known triptychs which he painted for the Hackeney family of Cologne, representing the "Death of the Virgin" on the cen tral panel and the portraits of the male and female members of the family grouped on the wings. The larger picture is in the Munich Pinakothek, and the smaller is in the Cologne museum. These two pictures, which gave the artist the provisional name of "the Master of the Death of the Virgin," brought the Flemish tradition to Cologne, and exercised a far-reaching influence on the local school. Another picture painted for Cologne is "the Pieta" at Frankfurt (1524), commissioned by the senator J. Schmitgen for the church of Sancta Maria in Lyskirchen.
In 152o Joos was appointed dean of his guild in Antwerp. In that year Diirer visited the city, and Joos must have admired his work for he copied the German master's "St. Jerome." It seems to have been his custom to copy other masters. "The Virgin" in the Spiridon collection in Paris recalls Van Eyck; "The Deposition" in the Johnson collection at Philadelphia is founded on Roger van der Weyden ; the saviour in the Louvre on Quentin Massys; the "Two Children Embracing," of which there are many replicas, on Leonardo. He must have felt drawn to the great Italian by his delight in delicate modelling, and he may have seen some of Leonardo's work in France; for we know on the authority of Guicciardini that when Francis I. of France sent to Flanders for a good portrait painter, Joos van Cleve was chosen among others ; he was rightly described as a good colourist. The originals of the portraits which he painted of the king, and of his wife, Eleanor of Austria, are no longer extant ; but it is thought that the portraits of the king at Hampton Court and in the Johnson collection at Philadelphia, and of the queen at the Vienna museum, are replicas of his work. An attractive
portrait by his hand, of Henry VIII. when young, at Hampton Court, suggests that the artist visited England. He also painted the emperor Maximilian (Andre collection, Paris). In the Louvre is a large altarpiece with a "Pieta" in the central panel, a "St. Francis" in the lunette and a "Last Supper" on the predella, which came from a church in Genoa. The "Last Supper" is founded on the famous fresco of Leonardo da Vinci at Milan. Three more altarpieces were painted by Joos for Genoa; one of these is still in the church of San Donato; another is "The Crucifixion," now in the Blumenthal collection at New York; and the third is the larger version of the two "Adorations of the Magi," by the master, in the Dresden gallery. It is therefore probable that he visited Italy some time after 153o. He died at Antwerp in 1540.
Besides the pictures mentioned the following may be noted : "The Crucifixion". in the Gardner collection, Boston; and "The Crucifixion" in the Naples museum ; "The Annunciation" in the Friedsam collection, New York. Joos is at his best when painting the "Virgin and Child." His fame rests on "The Madonna" at Ince Hall and on "The Madonna" at the Vienna museum. The heads are delicately modelled, with pretty complexions and sweet expressions. There is much to remind us of Mabuse. Charac teristic of his work are the accessories which he introduced in the foreground, such as a bowl of fruit, a knife, a lily in a glass, an open manuscript carefully finished—as in "The Madonna" in the Fitzwilliam museum at Cambridge, and one belonging to Mme. Nielson in Paris, and as in the "Virgin and Child and St. Anne" at Modena. The landscape backgrounds often recall the style of Joachim Patinir, who settled at Antwerp in 1515. The landscape in "St. John at Patmos" in the Kahn collection, New York, seems certainly to be by Patinir. Joos Van Cleve is some times called the Elder to distinguish him from his son, Cornelis van Cleve (152o-67), a distinguished portrait painter commonly known as Sotte Cleve, because he lost his reason.
See Max Friedlander, Von Van Eyck bis Brueghel (192I) ; Martin Conway, The Van Eycks and their Followers (1921) ; Ludwig Baldass, Joos van Cleve (Vienna, 1025).