Quentin Massys

Metsys, Quentin
Massys, Quinten
Matsys, Quentin

Netherlandish, 1466 - 1530

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Flemish painter (1466-1530)

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A smiling young woman and an elderly man with exaggerated features embrace and gaze into each other’s eyes while a person dressed in the orange costume of a fool lurks behind them to our left in this horizontal painting. All three have pale skin and are shown from the chest up behind a ledge or tabletop against a black background. The older man to our right wears a dark teal-blue garment and a bright crimson-red head covering that drapes over both shoulders. Wrinkles and age spots cover his face, which is accentuated by a bulbous nose and a leering smile that exposes missing teeth. His arms reach out and encircle the woman to our left. Cradling the right side of her head with his right hand, his left arm reaches across to her upper body, his thumb visible at her breast. A blue and gold band holds the woman’s auburn-brown hair back. A white shift peeks through the slashed sleeves of her emerald-green, gold-trimmed gown. She reaches toward the elderly man with her right arm, her hand holding his chin. Her left arm reaches across her body under his arm and she holds a leather pouch in that hand. A man wearing an orange cap with asses’ ears reaches for the pouch, eyes crossed and his tongue protruding from the side of his mouth. Playing cards and coins lie on the ledge to our left.
Quentin Massys, Ill-Matched Lovers, c. 1520/1525, oil on panel, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1971.55.1

Ill-Matched Lovers

Quentin Massys · c. 1520/1525 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1971.55.1

Quentin Massys, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1467/1469-1536, Scholar, Theologian, and Satirist, 1519, lead//Late cast, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1957.14.1264

Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1467/1469-1536, Scholar, Theologian, and Satirist

Quentin Massys · 1519 · lead//Late cast ·  Accession ID  1957.14.1264

Bibliography

1967

  • Friedländer 1929, vol. 7 (vol. 7, 1971).

1975

  • Bosque, Andrée de. Quentin Massys. Brussels, 1975.

1978

  • Campbell, Lorne, et al. "Quentin Massys, Desiderius Erasmus, Pieter Gillis and Thomas More." The Burlington Magazine 120 (1978): 716-724.

1984

  • Silver, Larry. The Paintings of Quinten Massys, with Catalogue Raisonné. Montclair, New Jersey, 1984.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 145.