LEYDEN, LUCAS VAN, a very celebrated old Dutch painter and engraver, was born at Leyden in 1494. He was first instructed iu the arts by Hugh Jacobze, his father ; afterwards by Cornelis Engel brechtsz; and he distinguished himself even as a boy by his engra vings, and was a famous painter as early as his twelfth year. He painted in distemper a picture of St. Hubert, iu 1506, for a citizen of Leyden of the name of Lokborst, who was so astonished and gratified at the excellence of the work, that he paid him twelve gold pieces for it, one for each year of his age; at that time doubtless a very large sum for a picture. Some of Lucas's early engravings are highly prized by print-collectors, and accounted among the greatest rarities of their class; they owe their value however much more to their time and the peculiar circumstances of their origin, than to any intrinsio merit they may have. They are better as engravings than as works of art. Vasari speaks highly of the prints of Luca d'011anda, as he is called by the Italians. He excelled in aerial perspective, but lie was far surpassed by his two contemporaries, Albert Diirer and Mareantonio—in correctness of drawing by the letter, and iu execu tion and in drawing by the former. Albert Diirer visited Lucas at Antwerp in 1521, and he makes the following note in his journal: "I was invited to dinner by master Lucas, who engraves in copper : he is a little man, and is a native of Leyden." Thie visit was paid during a journey which Lucas made through Zealand, Flanders, and Brabant for the sake of becoming acquainted with and seeing the 'works of their various painters. The entry above quoted from the pocket book of Albert Diirer, fixes the date of this journey six years earlier than the account of Van Mender, who says that Lucas made it when he was about thirty-three years of age, which, according to his own date of Lucas's birth, 1494, would be in 1527.
Lucas, who was well to do in worldly matters, fitted up a small vessel or sloop expressly for this journey ; and at Middelburg, where he entertained the painters of the place with a feast which cost him sixty florins, he persuaded Jan de Malmo to join him, and they made the excursion together, both clad more like princes than artists. It was a succession of feasts, and Lucas repeated the entertainment of Middelburg at Ghent, at Antwerp, and at Mechlin. He however was not less energetic in his pleasures than at his work, and he indulged during this excursion in a round of dissipation which appears to have lastingly injured his constitution : he was never well afterwards. His
own vanity led him to account for his illness by the supposition that some of his rivals whom he had entertained had endeavoured to poison him, and he added to his malady by indulgence and despondency. Ho allowed his mind to fall into such a morbid state that his physical strength left him, and he passed nearly the whole of the last few years of his life in bed, or at least in the still howiver working at occasional intervals. He died in 1533, aged only thirty-nine.
Lucas's pictures aro very scarce ; they are in the old Flemish style, but are among the best worka of that schooL They are earnest, expressive, deeply coloured, and executed with great care ; and are beautiful and highly interesting, notwithstanding their gothic forms and arrangement : in the perspective of colour they are in advance of their time. The galleries of Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Munich possess a few good pictures by Lucas ; his own portrait is in the Berlin Gallery. There is a very small curious picture by him in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire, at Devonshire House ; it repre seuts a man having a tooth drawn, while a woman is picking his pocket : there is a print of it, of the same size, by Lucas himself, dated 1523. There is a picture also by Lucas at Wilton House, and another at the Liverpool Institution. A picture of the 'Lest Judg ment,' one of his moat remarkable works, is still in the town-house at Leyden. The print of • Eulenspiegel; a notorious clown or jester of the 14th century, is the rarest engraving in existence : there are said to be not more than five or six of the original extant, but it has often been copied, and the first copy was made in 1644 by Hondius, when the price of the original, even at that early time, was fifty ducats; it is about six and a half inches high and rather more than five wide. Bartsch, who published a distinct catalogue of the prints of Lucas van Leyden, describes 174 eugraviogs by him; in all, including wood-cuts, his prints amount probably to about 200.
(Van slander, Het Leven der Schilders; Bartsch, Creealogue Raiaonn6 de touter les Etampes qui ferment (Euvre de Lucca de Leyde, and Peintre Crrareur, vol. vii.; Huber, Manuel des Amateurs, etc. ; Von Quandt, Entwurfe su einer Geschichte der Kupferatecher-kunst ; Van Eynden and Van der Willigen, Geschiedenis der Vaterlantsche Schilder kunst, etc.)