COSSIERS, Jan

After Rubens’s death Cossiers executed numerous religious pices for various churches in the Southern Netherlands.

The earliest work of the Antwerp artist Jan Cossiers, which can be dated in the 1630s, consisted of genre pictures,, mostly life-size scenes of fortune tellers, gypsies and smokers. Because of their subject matter and their remarkable chiaroscuro these paintings are related to similar work by the Caravaggists. These early genre pieces are executed in a fairly free application of paint of a rather creamy consistency which is quite different from the smooth technique of the ‘tenebrosi’.

Surviving portraits by Jan Cossiers are scarce. The few drawings in which he made portraits of his children show that he had a sharp eye for human physiognomy and bear witness to a sensibility compatible to that of Van Dyck.

Cossiers painted this picture after his return from Rome to the north, when he seems initially to have made a speciality of genre scenes of this type, perhaps inspired by Caravaggesque low-life subjects he had seen in Italy or their northern counterparts.

After Rubens’s death Cossiers executed numerous religious pieces for various churches in the Southern Netherlands. The later his work, the more intense the interpretation of feelings becomes, both in emotionally charged facial expressions and in meaningful gestures. The originally rather more Rubensian composition gives way to a more emotional setting. This development can be illustrated by the enormous Passion ensemble placed above the high altar in the Beguinage Church in Mechelen.

After Rubens’s death Cossiers executed numerous religious pieces for various churches in the Southern Netherlands. This painting was formerly attributed to Jan Comius and to Raphael Coxcie.