Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c1500 - c1566). Jan Sanders van Hemessen was a leading Flemish Renaissance painter, belonging to the group of Italianizing Flemish painters called the Romanists, who were influenced by Italian Renaissance painting. Van Hemessen had visited Italy during the 1520s, and also Fontainebleau near Paris in the mid 1530s, where he was able to view the work of the colony of Italian artists known as the First School of Fontainebleau, who were working on the decorations for the Palace of Fontainebleau. Van Hemessen's works show his ability to interpret the Italian models into a new Flemish visual vocabulary. Hemessen played an important role in the development of genre painting, through his large scenes with religious or worldly subjects, set in towns with contemporary dress and architecture. These works depict human failings such as greed and vanit, and some show an interest in subjects with a financial angle. His genre scenes develop the Mannerist inversion later taken further by Pieter Aertsen, where a small religious scene in the background reveals the true meaning of the painting, which is dominated by a large foreground scene seemingly devoted to a secular genre subject. One of his best known works, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, expresses a religious theme through a pure genre painting set in a tavern and can be regarded as an important early statement of the merry company tradition. He also painted a small number of portraits, some of exceptional quality, influenced by Bronzino. Van Hemessen was also known for his large nude figures, a subject matter that he had familiarised himself with in Italy. He was based in Antwerp between 1519 and 1550, joining the artist's Guild of Saint Luke there in 1524. After 1550 he may have moved to Haarlem. He painted several religious subjects, and many others may have been destroyed in the Beeldenstorm that swept through Antwerp in the year of his death. Jan Sanders van Hemessen was born in Hemiksem, then called Hemessen or Heymissen. He was an apprentice of Hendrick van Cleve I in Antwerp. He traveled to Italy early in his career, around 1520. Here he studied both models from classical antiquity, such as the Laocoon as well as the contemporary works of Michelangelo and Raphael. He returned to Antwerp where he entered the local Guild of Saint Luke as a master in 1524. Van Hemessen is believed to have worked early in his career at the royal court in Mechelen. Here he may have first encountered Jan Gossaert, a court painter, as well as the Master of the Legend of the Magdalen. Although the early biographer Karel van Mander wrote that van Hemessen spent time in Haarlem, there is no evidence for this statement. Van Hemessen was married to Barbara de Fevre with whom he had two daughters. After his wife's death, he had an illegitimate son called Peeter with his maid Betteken. After the death of Jan Sanders van Hemessen and Betteken, Peeter was legitimised in 1579, at the age of 24. Jan Sanders van Hemessen trained his daughter Catharina van Hemessen who became a successful portrait painter. It is not known where van Hemessen died. Van Hemessen painted a very wide range of subjects, including religious, mythological and allegorical scenes, nudes, portraits and genre scenes. Van Hemessen was one of the earliest Netherlandish artists to exploit the genre character of biblical subjects often for a moralizing purpose. Van Hemessen specialized in scenes of human character flaws such as vanity and greed. His pictures often have a religious subject. His style helped found the Flemish traditions of genre painting. Van Hemessen was also a portrait painter. His Mannerist style is characterised by muscular and palpably three-dimensional figures, a densely packed foreground of abruptly cropped forms, and vigorous, even flamboyant gestures. Hemessen counterbalanced the influence of Classical and Renaissance models with the realism he must have learned from northern artists such as Quentin Matsys, Joos van Cleve, Marinus van Reymerswaele and possibly even Lucas van Leyden and Hans Holbein the Younger. Jan Sanders van Hemessen is associated with the development of the merry company theme in Flemish genre painting. He commenced his compositions on this theme with a 1536 painting on a religious subject, i.e. the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The foreground of the composition shows the prodigal son during his days of high living in the company of prostitutes, music, wine and gambling. In the background through the open window one can discern a scene of the prodigal son living among the swine after he has fallen on hard times and the scene of his reunion with his father who forgives him.