SWART VAN GRONINGEN, Jan

(b. ~1500 Groningen, d. ~1560 Antwerpen)

Northern Netherlandish printmaker, painter and designer of stained glass. Van Mander recorded that Swart spent several years in Gouda (probably c. 1522-3), where he was the teacher of Adriaen (Pietersz.) Crabeth (d 1553), brother of the famous stained-glass designers Dirk and Wouter Crabeth. From van Mander it is also known that Swart travelled to Italy. He may have gone from Venice to Constantinople, before he designed another work mentioned by van Mander, the Procession of Turkish Riders, a set of five woodcuts (1526) depicting Sultan Suleyman the Great and his entourage and executed by Willem Liefrinck (1490-1542). Van Mander did not know any paintings by Swart, but he reported that he did paint landscapes and figures, according to him, in the style of Jan van Scorel.

John the Baptist (or the Apostle Philip) Preaching

This print was executed by an unknown cutter after Jan Swart. Clusters of tiny oval shapes on the cliff above the saint, as well as similarly springing lines and curves, indicate the ground. They can be found in a number of woodcuts after Swart.

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The Triumph of Silenus

In Greek mythology Silenus is a rural god, one of the retinue of Bacchus, a gay, fat old drunkard who was yet wise and had the gift of prophecy.

Swart’s secure oeuvre is limited to woodcuts and stained glass, and so although a number of panel paintings have been attributed to him on stylistic grounds, the authorship of these are at this time uncertain. However, The Triumph of Silenus certainly seems to be stylistically consistent with this tentative oeuvre.

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Woman Lamenting by a Burning City

The unusual subject of this painting has been identified variously as an allegory of bad fortune, Lot’s wife by the burning Sodom, and Cassandra bewailing the fall of Troy.

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