Gillis Mostaert

1534 – 1598

Netherlandish painter, descendant of Jan Mostaert. He was enlisted as a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1554-55. In 1563 he married Margareta Baes in St Walburgakerk, and between 1564 and 1572 six children were christened in the same church. From 1575 onwards, and until 1588 (the registers are missing between 1579 and 1584), several more were christened in the St Joriskerk. A tax list of 1584 indicates that the painter was then living in a rented house near that church. No named pupils of Mostaert are recorded in the guild lists, but in 1572 Hendrik Pieters, a young artist who intended to travel to Italy, admitted that he had studied with Mostaert in the latter's house for more than a year. Several other artists can also be associated with Mostaert: Cornelis van Dalem, to whom he introduced Bartholomaus Spranger as a pupil and into whose landscapes he occasionally painted the staffage figures; Peeter Baltens and Crispin van den Broeck, who were godfathers to children of Mostaert in 1571 and 1588.

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