IIEERE, LUCAS DE, a distinguished painter and poet, was born at Ghent in 1534. His father, Jan de Ilecre, was a good sculptor, and his mother excelled in miniature painting. Lucas was placed with Frans Florio, after he had made sufficient progress with his father to benefit by the instruction of Pieria.
De Hem painted in France; and ho was in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, whom he painted several times. There is a flat tering allegory of her by him at Hampton Court : it represents Eliza beth as queen, attended by two maids of honour, coming into the presence of Juno, Minerva, and Venus; the first is put to flight, the second is astonished, and the last blushes; as Is pretty broadly Indi cated by some Latin verses, probably by De Heere himself, written on the frame. In 1570 Lucas was employed to paint a gallery for Edward, earl of Lincoln, lord high admiral, in which he was to repre sent the costumes of different nations. For England, says Van Mender, he painted a naked man surrounded by all sorts of woollen and silk stuffs, with a pair of scissors and a piece of chalk; and when the admiral asked him to explain it, Lucas said that he could not paint the Englishman in any particular costume, as he changed it daily ; he therefore painted him naked, gave him stuff and chairs, and left him to make his own clothes. This however, as Walpole has
pointed out, was not an original device; it is prefixed by Andrew Bonk, or Andrea l'crforatus as he calls himself, to his ' Introduction to Knowledge.' The principal of Lucas's poetical works was the Garden of Poetry, Boomgaard der Pcffisij8; he commenced also in verse the ' Lives of the Paluterr,' but this is lost. IIe died at Ghent in 1584: he used for a monogram an H and E joined, and he used also sometimes the following moral anagram of his own name, ' Schade leer is' (injuries teach you). De Freese was the master of Van Mander.
(Van Mender, Het Leven der Schilders, dc.; Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting, (es.)