Master of the Brunswick Diptych (active c. 1480-1510), attributed to

The Master of the Brunswick Diptych was named by Friedländer in 1927 after the Diptych with the Virgin and Child with St Anne, a Carthusian Monk and St Barbara in the museum in Braunschweig, which he had earlier attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans in 1903.¹¹Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum; illustrated in ENP V, 1969, no. 16, pls. 16-17. He regarded the master a pupil of Geertgen’s because he painted the same oval types of face and similar, rather doll-like figures. The rendering of fabrics and landscape is also comparable. In 1958 Boon identified the master as Jacob van Haerlem, whom Van Mander mentions as the teacher of Jan Mostaert. Jacob van Haerlem is probably identical with Jacob Jansz, who is frequently recorded in Haarlem documents between 1483 and 1509, the year of his death. Snyder and Châtelet adopted this identification, but Boon himself withdrew it in 1981. Unfortunately, the corn porters’ altarpiece in the Grote Kerk, which Van Mander states was painted by Jacob van Haerlem, has been lost, so this identification remains hypothetical.

Although the master’s identity is uncertain, the oeuvre that Friedländer grouped around the Brunswick diptych has so far remained unchallenged.²²Illustrated in ENP V, 1969, nos. 16-22, pls. 16-19. In 1980 Châtelet, who stood by the identification with Jacob Jansz, added to his oeuvre several paintings that were attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans, among them The Adoration of the Magi (SK-A-2150) and The Tree of Jesse (SK-A-3901).

References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 229r; Friedländer V, 1927, pp. 51-54; Hoogewerff II, 1937, pp. 194-202, 220-21; Amsterdam 1958, pp. 55-58; ENP V, 1969, pp. 31-32, 97; Snyder 1971, pp. 451-53; Boon 1981a, pp. 313-20; Châtelet 1981, pp. 122-31, 223-26; Snyder in Turner 1996, X, pp. 636-37; Lammertse in Rotterdam 2008a, pp. 130-32

(J.P. Filedt Kok)