Adriaen Isenbrandt

Documentary evidence suggests he was a significant and successful artist of his period, even though no specific works by his hand are clearly documented.

He was believed by Georges Hulin de Loo to be the same person as the anonymous Master of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin or Pseudo-Mostaert.

When he died, at Bruges, in 1551, he was buried alongside his first wife at the cemetery of the St. Jacob church there; his children inherited no less than four houses with surrounding property.

Isenbrandt is mentioned in the book De Gandavensibus et Brugensibus eruditionis laude claris libri duo by the priest Antonius Sanderus, published in Amsterdam in 1624.

This writer refers to texts of the Florentine Lodovico Guicciardini, the Schilderboeck of Karel van Mander and the (lost) notes of the Ghent jurist Dionysius Hardwijn (or Harduinus, 1530–1604).

The latter, who had spent several years in Bruges about 1550, mentions Isenbrandt as a disciple of the old Gerard David, who excelled "in nudes and in portraits".

A document stating that he sent some paintings from Antwerp to Spain shows that worked for export as well as the local market, and suggests his international reputation.

These assistants also painted, as this was common practice in those times, many versions of the "Madonna and Child", that were then attributed to Isenbrandt, giving him the reputation of having had an enormous body of work.

In 1520 he worked, together with Albert Cornelis and Lanceloot Blondeel, on the decorations for the Triumphal Entry of Emperor Charles V into Bruges.

Especially the flaming red or the dark blue set against an idyllic background of a lush, hilly landscape with castles situated on top of a vertical rock (typical for Isenbrandt), sinuous rivers and thick-leaved trees (showing the influence of Gerard David).

He borrowed compositions from Jan Gossaert (leading to the confusion with this painter) and drawings from Albrecht Dürer and Martin Schongauer.

The influence of the Italian Renaissance can be seen in the detailed addition of fashionable scenery elements such as volutes, antique pillars and ram's heads, such as in his painting of the "Mass of Saint Gregory the Great" ( J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles ).