MOSTAERT, JAN

born c. 1475, , Haarlem, Neth. died 1555/56 Dutch 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 in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels. Other works include The Adoration of the Kings (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and a Tree of Jesse and a west Indian landscape (both in private collections). Although he was a contemporary of the Flemish 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 Dutch painters.