of them. In 1508
he went to Italy, where he appears to have been greatly influenced both
by the work of the Renaissance painters and by the antique. The
_Adoration of the Kings_, which was lately purchased from Castle Howard
for the National Gallery for L40,000, was painted before he went to
Italy.

Towards the end of the fifteenth century, in consequence of the transfer
of commerce from Bruges to Antwerp, this latter city first became and
long continued the centre of art, and especially of Netherlandish
painting. Here it is that we find QUENTIN MASSYS, the greatest Belgian
painter of this later time. He was born

[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.--JAN MABUSE

PORTRAIT OF JEAN CARONDELET

_Louvre, Paris_]

probably in 1466. 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, 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.

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).

The most celebrated of his subject pictures is that known by the name of
_The Misers_, or _The Money