Of all the leading painters in Antwerp in the early sixteenth century, the biography of Joos van Cleve is one of the least certain. The first dated work is, however, from 1507, Adam and Eve, (Paris, Louvre) and this has led to the suggestion that he could have been working with Jan Joest at Kalkar, before moving to Antwerp, where he was recorded in the Guild in 1511. He is also known from an engraving of 1572, which identifies him as the sitter, and this engraving has been tentatively associated with a painting in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court. The artist died in Antwerp in the winter of 1540/1, as his second wife was recorded as a widow in April 1541.  A large number of pictures are now given to Joos van Cleve, including several series of the Virgin and Child, and a corpus of portraits which are stylistically coherent.   Some of these portraits, especially those of François I of France, have some documentary authority. A number of the pictures, especially the religious ones, seem to come from a large and active workshop. The portraits, fewer in number, sometimes betray Italian influences, especially in the introduction of Leonardesque sfumato, often seen  in the artist’s later work in the 1530s.  John Oliver Hand in his recent monograph (2004) has questioned Friedländer’s definition of the late portraits, preferring to see another, as yet unidentified, artist.  Given the recent dating of the Schorr panel here to no earlier than 1610, there may well need to be further revision of other pictures still attributed to Joos van Cleve.

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