Matthys Cock

Netherlandish, c. 1509 - 1548

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Flemish printmaker, draughtsman and painter

Explore Selected Works

Matthys Cock, Landscape with Castle above a Harbor, 1540, pen and brown ink with watercolor and white heightening on light brown laid paper, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1978.19.2

Landscape with Castle above a Harbor

Matthys Cock · 1540 · pen and brown ink with watercolor and white heightening on light brown laid paper ·  Accession ID  1978.19.2

We float high above the land, looking across rolling hills toward a shimmering, aquamarine-blue body of water to our left and towns peppered along taller mountains to our right, beneath an incoming storm in this horizontal painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting. Only upon closer inspection does one discover dozens of tiny men and women scattered in groups or individually across the landscape. Closest to us but still tiny in scale, at the lower center, a man wearing a scarlet-red tunic and dark pants chops down a tree as another man wearing navy blue walks away from us. A man snoozes on the grass nearby and another squats in the protection of a hollowed out tree, pants down, in the lower left corner of the painting. The rolling, light brown hills angle away from us to our left. Atop a hill to our left, a tall frame holds up two flaming wheels. At its foot, a person wearing robes kneels and looks up, arms raised, at the wheel, which is on fire. Three people, one wearing armor, lie nearby and others run away. A structure on a rocky outcropping nearby is also on fire, and black smoke billows skyward. In the harbor below, at the center of the composition, two ships tip wildly in the water. People walk and work in pairs and groups through the rest of the landscape, including a bustle of activity around a wooden ship being built to our right. Travelers on foot and on horseback follow a winding road along the harbor toward a castle on the far promontory. Beyond that lies a ship-filled port town, and, across a drawbridge on at the far right, a walled city in the hazy distance. Clouds rolling across the left half of the painting are charcoal gray, almost black. To our right, patches of bright blue sky peek through a thin screen of white clouds.
Antwerp 16th Century, Matthys Cock, The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine, c. 1540, oil on plywood transferred from panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.2.18

The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine

Antwerp 16th Century, Matthys Cock · c. 1540 · oil on plywood transferred from panel ·  Accession ID  1952.2.18

Bibliography

1906

  • Floerke, Hanns. Das Leben der niederländischen und deutschen Maler des Carel van Mander. 2 vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1906: 1:248-251.

1907

  • Edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart 1912, 7:145.

1927

  • Baldass, Ludwig. "Ein Landschaftsbild von Matthys Cock." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 61 (1927/1928): 90-96.

1932

  • Hoogewerff, G. J. "Matthijs Wellens de Cock." Feestbundel Prof. Dr. Willem Vogelsang. Leiden, 1932: 31-35.

1936

  • Hoogewerff, G. J. De Noord-Nederlandsche Schilderkunst. The Hague, 1936-1947: 3:364.

1955

  • Boon, K. G. "De tekenaar van het Errera-Schetsboek." Bulletin des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 4 (1955): 220, fig. 4, 224-225.

1964

  • Faggin, Giorgio T. "Aspetti dell'influsso di Tiziano nei Paesi Bassi." Arte Veneta 18 (1964): 46-49.

1965

  • Zwollo, An. "De Landschaptekeningen van Cornelis Massys." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek. 16 (1965): 44.

1969

  • Fritz Grossmann to Colin Eisler, letter, 25 January 1969, in NGA curatorial files.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 92.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 3-6.