430 Painting (c) The Antwerp School. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, Antwerp became the commercial capital of Belgium, and at the same time the head-quarters of the school of painting. Here arose Quinten Matsys (ab. 1466 — 1531 ?), the greatest Flemish painter of his day, whose works are remarkable for beauty of form, delicacy of finish, solemn- ity of feeling, and softness and transparency of colouring. His draperies have an easy grace, rare in the pictures of his school, and his sacred figures are grand and dignified. On the other hand, the minor personages in his groups are often not only coarse but vulgar. His greatest work is an altar-piece in the Antwerp Museum, consisting of a centre-piece and two wings, on which is represented the Deposition from the Gross, with Herodias's Daughter presenting the Head of John the Bap- tist to Herod on one side, and the Martyrdom of 8. John the Evangelist on the other. It is a noble composition, full of character and energy. A very celebrated picture by Matsys of Two Misers is in the Royal collection at Windsor : the Banker and his wife in the Louvre is also well known. The Misers in the National Gallery, formerly ascribed to him, is now given to Marinus de Seeuw (fl. ab. 1521 — 1541) : but that collection possesses, in a diptych of the heads of Christ and the Virgin, a genuine work of Matsys. As masters of the Early Flemish School we must also name Joachim de Patinir (fl. ab. 1520), of Dinant, a painter both of historic subjects and landscape, four of whose works are in the National Gallery, which also possesses a
