Jan van Calcar

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Iohann van Calcar by Maximilian Franck
Jan van Calcar is assumed to have been the illustrator of Vesalius's Fabrica which contained many intricately detailed drawings of human dissections, often in allegorical poses.

Jan Steven van Calcar (

Latin: Ioannes Stephanus Calcarensis) (c. 1499–1546) was a German-born Italian
painter.

Life

Calcar was born in the Duchy of

Vasari refers to him several times, mainly with respect to his having been a pupil of Titian. Calcar entered Titian's school in 1536 and was accepted to his faculty for his extraordinarily accurate copies of the works of that master. Calcar appears to have worked first at Dordrecht, but the greater part of his life was spent at Naples, and there, as Vasari tells us, "the fairest hopes had been conceived respecting his future progress".[1]

Works

De humani corporis fabrica libri septem
or On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books (1543).

Calcar is also said to have drawn the portraits of the artists in the early edition of Vasari's Lives. By some writers he has been declared to have been a close imitator of Giorgione; all who write about him unite in stating that his imitations of the works of the great Venetian artists, and also of Raphael, were so extraordinary that they deceived many critics of the day. His pictures are to be seen in Berlin, Paris, Florence, Vienna, and Prague, and his original works are, as a rule, portraits, although at Prague there is a remarkable "Nativity" by him, which was once the property of Rubens.

Notes

  1. ^ Williamson, George. "Jan Stephanus van Kalcker". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.

References

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainHerbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Jan Stephanus van Kalcker". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Calcar, John de". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

Media related to Jan Stefan van Calcar at Wikimedia Commons