15th and 16th Century Artists Known by Nicknames
Rennaissance Painters Better Known by Their Assumed Names
Nov 9, 2008
Q. Joos van Wassenhove
A. Better known as Justus of Ghent [1410-1480]
Van Wassenhove was a Flemish painter who later worked in Italy. He created the altarpiece “Triptychon der Kreuzigung” (1464) depicting Christ on the Cross which can now be viewed at Kathedrale St. Bavo in Ghent.
Q. Michelozzo degli Ambrogi
A. Known as Melozzo da Forli [1438-1494]
Italian Renaissance painter accomplished at fresco and the first who successfully used the principles of foreshortening. His vivid fresco “Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library” (c. 1477) is housed in the Vatican Museums.
Q. Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet
A. Master of the Housebook [active in the 1480s]
An engraver and painter working in South Germany in the last quarter of the 15th century known as the first artist to use the drypoint form of engraving. The majority of his surviving prints are in the print room at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It has been suggested that this artist is Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht, a printer and designer of woodcuts who worked in Mainz. His drawings are contained in the “Housebook” owned by a German noble family. In 1999, the book was on exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. which can be viewed online here.
Q. Sebastiano Luciano
A. Sebastiano del Piombo [1485-1547]
Del Piombo was a Renaissance artist of the Venetian school whose brilliant work “Martyrdom of Saint Agatha” can today be viewed in Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
Q. Jacopo Carucci.
A. Pontormo [1494-1557]
Portraitist and fresco painter from Florence often supported by the patronage of the Medici family. The brilliant altarpiece canvas “The Deposition from the Cross” (1528), created for the Brunelleschi-designed Capponi Chapel in the church of Santa Felicita in Florence, is considered by many to be Pontormo's surviving masterpiece.
Q. Giulio Pippi
A. Giulio Romano [1499-1546]
Italian painter and pupil of Raphael who helped define the 16th century style known as Mannerism. Historian Giorgio Vasari is quoted as saying this of his “Stoning of St. Stephen” (currently in Santo Stefano religious square in Bologna, Italy): "Giulio never did a finer work than this"; because contemporary artist Domenico del Barbiere also engraved the painting, it was influential for designers who never saw the original. His gorgeous fresco “The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche” (1528) can today be seen in the palace Palazzo Te in Mantua, Italy.
Sources:
- Bailey, Colin J. The Art Quiz Book: 2000+ Questions on Painters and Paintings. Station Press: Scotland, 1995.
- “Grove Dictionary of Art.” Oxford University Press, 2008.
