MABINOGION (plural of Welsh mabinogi, from mabinog, a bard's apprentice), the title given to the collection of it Welsh prose tales (from the 14th-century Red Book of Hergest) pub lished (1838) by Lady Charlotte Guest, newly tr'd. by T. P. Ellis and J. Lloyd, The Mabinogion (1929). (See WELSH LITERATURE.) MABUSE, JAN (c. 1472–c. the name adopted (from his birthplace, Maubeuge) by the Flemish painter Jan Gossaert, or Jenni Gossart, as he called himself when he matriculated in the gild of St. Luke, at Antwerp, in 1503. His most important early work extant is the "Adoration of the Kings" in the National Gallery, formerly at Castle Howard. Here he throws together some thirty figures on an architectural background, carefully elaborated and Romanesque in style. He surprises us by pompous costume. His figures, like pieces on a chess-board, are often rigid and conventional. The landscape which shows through the ruined architecture is adorned with towers and steeples in minute fashion. The picture is signed IENNTNE GOS . . . and was probably painted for the Abbey of St. Adrian, Grammont. It is the work of a man trained in the old Flemish traditions. That he was an admirer of Van Eyck is shown by his picture in Madrid of "Jesus, the Virgin, and the Baptist," in Gothic framework. One of Mabuse's most distinguished works, the little triptych at Palermo was probably also painted at this early period. Carondelet, who was Mabuse's patron, was archbishop of Palermo and chancellor of Flanders, and he probably transferred the picture to Sicily. It is a wonderful piece of pictorial elaboration, containing features taken from Diirer. Another early work is the moonlight scene representing "The Agony in the Garden" in the Berlin Museum.
After a residence of a few years at Antwerp, Mabuse took ser vice with Philip, bastard of Philip the Good, at that time lord of Somerdyk and admiral of Zeeland. One of his pictures had already become celebrated—a Descent from the Cross (50 figures), on the high altar of the monastery of St. Michael of Tongerloo. Philip of Burgundy ordered Mabuse to execute a replica for the church of Middelburg; and the value which was then set on the picture is apparent from the fact that Diirer came expressly to Middel burg to see it ; and he noted in his diary that it was not so good in design as in execution. In 1568 the altar-piece perished
by fire. In 1508 Mabuse accompanied Philip of Burgundy on his Italian mission; and by this accident an important revolution was effected in the art of the Netherlands. He not only brought home a new style, but he also introduced the fashion of travelling to Italy; and from that time till the age of Rubens and Van Dyck it was considered proper that all Flemish painters should visit the peninsula.
In the summer of 15o9 Philip returned to the Netherlands, and, retiring to his seat of Suytburg in Zeeland, surrendered himself to the pleasures of planning decorations for his castle and order ing pictures of Mabuse and Jacopo de Barbari. Being in con stant communication with the court of Margaret of Austria at Malines, he gave the artists in his employ fair chances of promo tion. Barbari was made court painter to the regent, whilst Mabuse received less important commissions. Records prove that Mabuse painted a portrait of Leonora of Portugal, and other small pieces, for Charles V. in 1516. But his only signed pictures of this period are the Neptune and Amphitrite of 1516 at Berlin, the compo sition of which is taken from Diirer's famous engraving, and the Madonna, with a portrait of Jean Carondelet of 1517, at the Louvre, in both of which we clearly discern that Vasari only spoke by hearsay of the progress made by Mabuse in "the true method of producing pictures full of nude figures and poesies," for the types are ugly, though drawn delicately and modelled elaborately. Of similar type is the Hercules and Deianira dated 1517, in the Cook Collection at Richmond. In later forms of the same subject—the Adam and Eve at Hampton Court, or the other version of the same subject at Berlin—we observe more nudity, combined with realism.