GOES, HUGO VANDER, a celebrated old Flemish painter and pupil of John Van Eyck. He was a native of Bruges according to Van Mender, but of Antwerp according to Vasari, who calls him Hugo d'Anversa. He spent same time in Italy, and after his return to the Netherlands appears to have settled in Ghent. He conducted the festival which was held at Ghent at the inauguration of Charles the Bold as Count of Flanders, on July 27, 1467. In 1473 he painted the decorations for the pope's jubilee ; and he was, according to the town archives, frequently employed by the authorities of Ghent down to the year 1480. The cause of his residing in Ghent is conjectured to be a supposed marriage with a beautiful maid of that place, the daughter of a citizen of the name of Jacob Weytens, in an apartment of whose house Vander Goes painted in oil a celebrated picture of 'David and Abigail,' in which be introduced the portrait of the daughter with whom he was in love, beautifully painted : it has been celebrated in verse by Lucas de Heere, but has since perished. Vander Gocs seems to have survived his supposed wife, for, probably about 1480, he entered the Augustine convent of Roodendale in the wood of Seignies near Brussels, in which he became a canon ; and there he was buried.
There are many extant works attributed by various writers to Vander Goes, but few with certainty : the Museum of Berlin has eight ; there are four at Munich, and several at Vienna, and in the Netherlands. Passavant thinks that the two large pictures of 'James I V.
of Scotland and his Queen,' with the 'Saints Andrew and George,' at Hampton Court (Nos. 509-510), are by Vander Goes, because they are similar to the pictures at Berlin; but they are much more likely to have been painted by Mabuse, to whom they are attributed, and who was in this country in the reign of Henry VII., James's father-in-law: James also was not married until 1503, when Vander Goes had probably been dead some time.
One of Vander Goes' masterpieces is the 'Crucifixion between the two Thieves,' in the church of St. James at Bruges, which, to pre serve it during the iconoclastic rage iu the 16th century (1566), was coated with black and inscribed with the tea commandments : it was afterwards cleaned, and still remains.
Vander Goes excelled in painting women, but he appears to have been unequal in his execution. His best works are conspicuous for the beauties of the Van Eyck and old Flemish school—colour and careful execution, with its prim postures and meagre forme.
(Van blander, Leven der Schildcrs, &c. ; De Bast, Jfessager dca Sciences et des Arts, Gand, 1824; Kunstblatt, 1826; Passavant, Kans. treise, &c. ; Rathgeber, Animism der Niederliindischen Malerei, &c.)