Joos van Cleve

Master of the Death of the Virgin
Joos van der Beke
Cleef, Joos van

Netherlandish, active 1505/1508 - 1540/1541

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Flemish painter (1485–1540)

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Shown from the waist up, a clean-shaven, pale-skinned man dressed in black gazes at us in this vertical portrait painting, which has an arched top. His body is angled to our right, but he glances back toward us with slightly drooping hazel-green eyes under slender brows. His face tapers to a narrow chin, and his pale pink lips are closed. His ear-length brown hair and bangs are mostly covered by a wide, black hat that sits cocked to our left. He wears a voluminous black coat with a wide fur collar over a black garment with a notched collar. A white shirt beneath is visible at the neck and cuffs. He pulls a bone-white glove onto one hand and wears a gold ring with a green gem on the index finger of his bare hand. The green background behind him glows around his shoulders and deepens to moss green around the arched top of the panel.
Joos van Cleve, Joris Vezeleer, probably 1518, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1962.9.1

Joris Vezeleer

Joos van Cleve · probably 1518 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1962.9.1

A woman with smooth, pale skin, wearing an ivory-white headdress and a peacock-blue dress, is shown from the hips up in this vertical portrait painting, which has an arched top. The woman’s body and face are angled to our left, and she looks off in that direction with gray eyes. Her smooth cheeks are lightly blushed in her heart-shaped face. She has a high forehead, faint brows, and her full, pale pink lips are closed. Narrow panels of her headdress come down the sides of her face, emphasizing the heart shape. The fabric covers her head and falls in a veil down her back. Her dress comes up high across the back of her neck and then flares out to nearly her armpits across a low, straight neckline. Sheer fabric covers her chest, and the inner part of her neckline has a band of black to each side. The blue dress is lined with gray fur along the neckline, down the front, and on the undersides of voluminous sleeves, which are turned back at her wrists. Black cuffs peek out from under the folds. In her right hand, to our left, she holds a single pink carnation in front of her abdomen with her thumb and first two fingers. She wears a gold ring on the pointer finger of her other hand, in which she holds a string of coral-red beads. A hint of a gold belt is just visible between and behind her hands. The green background behind her glows around her shoulders and deepens to moss green around the arched top of the panel.
Joos van Cleve, Margaretha Boghe, probably 1518, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1962.9.2

Margaretha Boghe

Joos van Cleve · probably 1518 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1962.9.2

Bibliography

1971

  • Friedländler 1931, vol. 9 (vol. 9, part 1, 1971).

1972

  • Bialostocki, Jan. "Joos van Cleve in dem Kalkarer Altar." In Kunsthistorische Forschungen Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag. Salzburg, 1972: 189-195.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 56.