around 1465 -1530 · Louvain and Antwerp

Intensely observed faces, moral satire and Flemish precision make Quinten Metsys a major founder of the Antwerp school.

Quinten Metsys, also named Quentin Massys or Matsys, was probably born in Louvain around 1465 and died in Antwerp in 1530. Tradition first says he was an ironworker before he chose painting, an attractive story but difficult to prove. Received master at the guild of Saint-Luc of Antwerp in 1491, he constructed a very personal synthesis between the detail of Flemish primitives, Italian monumentality and a new attention to human passions. The Lender and his wife, dated 1514, placed coins, scales, prayer books and a convex mirror in an interior where material economics meets moral examination. The Lender and his wife, dated 1514, placed coins, scales, prayer books and a convex mirror in an interior where material economics meets moral examination. The Lender and his wife, dated 1514, placed coins, scales, prayer books and a convex mirror in an interior where material economics meets moral examination. The Lender and his wife, dated 1514, placed coins, scales, prayer books and a convex mirror in an interior where material economics meets moral examination. The Lender and his wife, dated 1514, placed coins, scales, prayer books and a convex mirror in an interior where material economics meets every gesture questions value, greed and conscience. In his portraits of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Pieter Gillis, Metsys combines resemblance, intellectual activity and humanist network. The books, hands and looks describe a scholarly identity more than a social rank. His Lamentation over the body of the dead Christ belongs to the other major side of his work: his tight figures, expressive pain and dense color give the sacred story a physical presence. Metsys runs an active workshop and has a lasting influence on Antwerp painting, both portraits and scenes of money changers, collectors and grotesque figures. His art makes detail an instrument of thought and face the visible place of inner life. The "Quinten Metsys" selection notably compares The Lender and His Wife and Portrait of Erasmus of Rotterdam. His reading favors the material.

In Metsys, nothing is incidental: money weighs the conscience, the book constructs the humanist and the face reveals what the costume cannot say.