His father is said to have been a blacksmith

His father is said to have been a blacksmith and clockmaker, and there is a tradition that Quentin only forsook the hammer for the brush at instigation of a tender passion for a beautiful lady. Be that as it may,decorative painting, he is an important figure in the history of Belgian art. He distinguishes, broadly speaking, the close of the last period and the beginning of the next. A number of pictures representing sacred subjects exhibit, with little feeling for real beauty of form, such delicacy of features, beauty and earnestness of feeling, tenderness and clearness of colouring and skill in finish, as worthily recall the religious painting of the Middle Ages, though at the very end of them. In his draperies, especially, we observe a charm which is peculiar to Massys. At the same time, in the subordinate figures introduced into sacred subjects, such as the executioners, etc., he seems to take pleasure in coarse and tasteless caricatures. cheap oil paintings

In subjects taken from common life, such as money changers, loving couples, or ugly old women, he uses his brush with evident zest, and with great success. The pictures of his later period are also distinguished from those of other painters by the large size of the figures, which for the first time in his country are of three-quarters or even actual life size.

Among his most original and attractive pictures are the half-length figures of Christ and the Virgin. These must have been very popular in his own time, for he has left several repetitions of them. Two heads of this class are at Antwerp, and two others of equal beauty are in the National Gallery in one frame (No. 295). art oil paintings for sale

The most celebrated of his subject pictures is that known by the name of The Misers, or The Money Changers, at Windsor Castle—of which there are
 numerous copies, and this is not supposed to be the original. The Money Changer and His Wife at the Louvre is undoubtedly his.

Lucas van Leyden, as he was called (his real name being Luc Jacobez), was born in 1494, and died in 1533. He was a pupil of a little known artist, Cornelis Engelbrechstein, who was a follower if not a pupil of Memling. Lucas was an artist of multifarious powers and very early development. He painted admirably—though his authenticated works are very scarce—drew,oil painted portraits, and engraved. He pursued the path of realism in the treatment of sacred subjects, but with less beauty or elevation of mind. His heads are generally of a very ugly character. At the same time his form of expression found sympathy in the feeling of the period, and by the skill with which it was expressed, especially in his engravings, attracted a number of followers. In scenes from common life he is full of truth and delicate observation of nature, though showing now and then a somewhat coarse sense of humour. One of his most important works is a large composition of The Last Judgment, which is at Leyden. oil paintings for sale online