Mostaert, Jan

Jan Mostaert, (born c. 1475, Haarlem, Netherlands—died 1555/56), Netherlandish painter of portraits and religious subjects.

Little is known about Mostaert’s life. According to one account, he spent 18 years in Brussels and Mechelen as court painter to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, but other evidence suggests that he worked chiefly in Haarlem. His best-known work is a Deposition triptych. Other works include The Adoration of the Kings and Tree of Jesse and a West Indian landscape. Although he was a contemporary of the artists Quentin Massys and Joachim de Patinir, Mostaert’s style was essentially conservative, exhibiting the careful detail, smooth finish, and crystalline brightness of an older generation of Netherlandish painters.