Quentin Matsys - Legacy

Legacy

Matsys' works include A Portrait of an Elderly Man (1513), A Grotesque Old Woman (c.1513) and The Money Changer and His Wife (1514).

A Grotesque Old Woman (or The Ugly Duchess) is perhaps the best-known of his works. It served as a basis for John Tenniel's depiction of the Duchess in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It is likely a depiction of a real person with Paget's disease, though it is sometimes said to be a metaphorical portrait of the Margaret, Countess of Tyrol, who was known as Maultasch, which, though literally translated "satchel mouth", was used to mean "ugly woman" or "whore" (because of her marital scandals). His two large triptych altarpieces The Holy Kinship or Saint Anne Altarpiece (1507–1509) and The Entombment of the Lord (1508–1511) are also highly celebrated. Commissioned for The Church of Saint Peter in Leuven, they reflect strong religious feeling and precise detailing characteristic to the majority of his works.

Quentin's son, Jan Matsys, inherited the art but did not seek to expand upon his father's legacy. The earliest of his works, a St Jerome dated 1537, in the gallery of Vienna, as well as the latest, a Healing of Tobias of 1564, in the museum of Antwerp, are evidence of his tendency to substitute imitation for originality. Another son, Cornelis Matsys, was also a painter. Jan's son, Quentin Metsys the Younger, was an artist of the Tudor court, and painted the Sieve Portrait of Elizabeth I of England.

Near the front of the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp is a wrought-iron well, known as the "Matsys Well," which according to tradition was made by the painter-to-be.

Matsys was regarded as a cult figure during the 17th century in Antwerp in addition to being one of the founders of the local school of painting (which climaxed with the career of Peter Paul Rubens).

The asteroid 9569 Quintenmatsijs was named in his honor.