Jan Sanders Van Hemessen

Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500 – c. 1566) was a leading artist of the second generation of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Unlike some of these Hemessen had visited Italy at least once, and also Fontainebleau, where there was at the time a colony of Italian artists, the First School of Fontainebleau, working on the palace there. Hemessen played an important role in the development of genre painting, through his large scenes with religious or worldly subjects, set in towns with contemporary dress and architecture. These focused on human failings such as greed and vanity, and some show an interest in subjects with a financial angle. These develop the "Mannerist inversion" later taken further by Pieter Aertsen, where the small religious scene in the background finally reveals the full meaning of the painting, which is dominated by a large foreground scene seemingly devoted to secular genre subject matter. His best known work, the Parable of the Prodigal Son now in Brussels, was also a key forerunner of the later Merry company tradition, and he painted a pure genre painting set in tavern. He also painted a small number of portraits, some of exceptional quality, influenced by Bronzino. He was based in Antwerp between 1519 to 1550, joining the artist's Guild of Saint Luke there in 1524. After 1550 he may have moved to Haarlem. He painted several religious subjects, and many others may have been destroyed in the Beeldenstorm that swept through Antwerp in the year of his death.