Rocznik Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie (1(37).2012/2013)

Hanna Benesz The Temptation of St Anthony from the National Museum in Warsaw...

131

attributions. Friedländers adversaries pointed to the Leiden artists, Lucas Cornelisz Kock or
another Engelbrechtsz’s son - Cornelis Cornelisz Kunst.14 Works from the Engelbrechtsz’s
workshop generally share similar features with Antwerp paintings of the epoch, the so-called
Mannerists. Jan de Cock’s connection with Engelbrechtsz, either by family bonds or profes-
sional relationship (i.e., a practice in his Leiden workshop), was often suggested.15 Therefore,
more important than the identification of the artist’s name is the fact that he constituted a link
between the Antwerp and Leiden pictorial traditions. Following similar premises and basing
on a sole real indication of the name in the form as it appears on the print of the Landscape
with St Christopher (Pictum / J. Kock), Jan Piet Filedt Kok has recently adopted for this artist the
name of “Master J. Kock.”16 This enables a solution of the “premature” death problem of Jan de
Cock, whose date 1521 has always created difficulties in a reliable attribution of the woodcut
dated 1522. As the oeuvre of Master J. Kock Filedt Kok accepts more or less the same group of
works that had been pointed out by Friedländer, but he also makes an attempt to include there
the works of the Master of Vienna the Lamentation and the Master of Carrying the Cross in
Douai. This author believes that the Leiden influence from Engelbrechtsz’s circle is visible in
later works of Master J. Kock; therefore, he concludes that the artist must have moved to the
North after a period of living in Antwerp (where most likely both the painted version of the
Landscape with St Christopher and the woodcut from 1522 were executed) around 1525. Thus,
the sequence of places of residence and work has been reversed in relation to earlier sugges-
tions connected with the person of Jan van Leyen.
In any case, the oeuvre of this disputable artist amassed solely on the basis of attributions,
combines elements of both North and South Netherlandish art. In addition to the stylistic af-
finities with the Leiden masters (e.g., in Warsaw’s Temptation, the temptress’ similarity to the
woman rendered in profile in the print by Lucas van Leyden dating from 1509, B. 117), the artist
often used fantastical motifs borrowed from the works of Hieronymus Bosch, which makes
him one of the first followers of this master. The influence of Antwerp Mannerists is visible in
the expressive gestures of de Cock’s / Master J. Kock’s figures, while his landscape backgrounds
owe a lot to Joachim Patinir, considered to be the creator of modern landscape. It is de Cock’s I
Master J. Kock’s landscapes, above all - more intimate than those by Patinir, compositionally
sophisticated and with an intriguing atmosphere - that will make the main subject of this essay.
Until now the majority of scholars remained faithful to Friedländers original concept and
attributions, defining the artist by the name of Jan Wellens de Cock. Regardless of how we

14 Opposing against Friedländers concept were mainly Nicolaes Beets (1936) and Godefridus J. Hoogewerff
(1939). This debate is not important here, except for showing enormous difficulties with identification of an artist
whose works combine features typical of both Antwerp and Leiden mannerism. For a summaiy and further details
of this debate, see Saur Allgemeines Künstler-Lexikon, vol. 20 (München-Leipzig: K.G. Saur Verlag, 1998), pp. 70-1
and exh. cat. ExtravagAnt! A forgotten chapter of Antwerp painting 1500-1530/ Catalogue, Pieter van der Brink
and Maximiliaan P. J. Martens, eds, exh. cat., Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Künsten Antwerpen, 15 October
- 31 December 2005, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 21 January - 9 March 2006, BAI, Schoten, Antwerpen-
Maastricht 2005, pp. 219-20, cat. no. 93 (Yao-Fen You). For the best and most comprehensive set of archive materi-
als pertaining to biographical scraps of information on Jan Wellens de Cock, see also the same author in the exh.
cat. cited above, p. 224. The most in-depth analysis of the mutual Antwerp-Leiden influences in the work of Jan
Wellens de Cock, according to Friedländers concept, can be found in Unverfehrt (Unverfehrt, Hieronymus Bosch...,
op. cit.,pp. 173-7).
15 Yao-Fen You in ExtravagAnt!..., op. cit., p. 220.
16 Jan Piet Filedt Kok, “Leiden en Antwerpen omstreeks 1520. De ontmoeting met Albrecht Dürer en de in-
troductie van het landschap,” in Lucas van Leyden en de Renaissance, Christiaan Vogelaar et al., eds., exh. cat., Museum
De Lakenhal, Leiden, 20 March - 26 June 2011 (Antwerp: Ludion, 2011), pp. 103-19, esp. 108-9 and p. 225, cat. no. 20.