The Flight into Egypt

This painting has traditionally been identified as the work of Jan Wellens de Cock, an artist about whom little is known but likely belonged to the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1503. In the mid-twentieth century, G. J. Hoogewerff ('Werken van Mathijs (of Jan) Wellens de Cock', Meded. Ned. Hist. Inst. Rome, 2nd ser., IX, 1939, pp. 41-46), M.J. Friedländer ('Jan de Cock oder Lucas Kock', Miscellanea Leo van Puyvelde, Brussels, 1949, pp. 84-88), and W.R. Valentiner ('Notes on the So-called Jan de Cock', Art Quarterly, XIII, 1950, pp. 61-66) endeavored to establish his oeuvre. The biography of the artist, however, remains muddled with that of Lucas (Cornelisz. de) Kock (1495-1552), the third son of Cornelis Engebrechtsz. Regardless of the precise identity of the artist, the linear quality of the draftsmanship, expansive landscape background, and precise rendering of the foliage reveal that the present work owes a debt to the circle of artists associated with Antwerp Mannerism, which flourished in the Netherlands at the beginning of the sixteenth century and counted among its members Engebrechtsz and Jan de Beer. It can also be compared to the works of slightly later artists Adriaen Isenbrant and Cornelis Massys.