( fl c. 1499). South Netherlandish painter. The date of 1499 is inscribed on a small diptych (311*146 mm; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.) made for Christiaan de Hondt, Abbot of Ter Duinen, in WestFlanders from 1495 to 1509. The left wing is a copy of Jan van Eyck’s Virgin in a Church (Berlin, Gemäldegal.; see EYCK, VAN, (2), fig. 5) and the right wing, showing the abbot in prayer in a detailed interior, probably reflects the lost right wing of van Eyck’s diptych. Between 1515 and 1557 Abbot Robrecht de Clercq was painted on the reverse of the right wing, and the Salvator mundi on the reverse of the left was retouched. The changes from van Eyck are chiefly additions to increase decorative detail and emphasize the foreground. The painting technique retains something of the finesse necessary to copy van Eyck, but the sharper modelling is more akin to Hugo van der Goes, with whom the Master of 1499 could have worked, since three other pictures from his hand are based on Hugo’s designs: the Virgin Enthroned with Female Saints (Richmond, VA Mus. F.A.), the triptych of the Coronation of the Virgin (Brit. Royal Col.) and the diptych of the Annunciation (Berlin, Bodemus.). The derivative nature of his work allows the Master of 1499 to be localized in Ghent, the home of van der Goes, but makes it difficult to date. A donor couple with the Virgin and Child (Paris, Louvre) wear the fashions of the 1490s. A pasticheur who lacked the originality to revivify his borrowings, the Master of 1499 has been less studied in his own right than for the light he sheds on van der Goes.

Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family

• 1499, Master of
  • Belgium, §III, 2(i): Panel, wall and glass painting, 1400–c 1550
  • Eyck, van: (2) Jan van Eyck, §5: Critical reception and posthumous reputation