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Hemessen.
South Netherlandish family of painters. . Originally from the village of Hemessen (Hemishem) outside Antwerp, Jan Sanders was apprenticed in 1519–20 to Hendrik van Cleve I (before 1489–after 1520), a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke. Stylistic evidence suggests that he may then have worked with the Master of the Magdalen Legend at the royal court at Mechelen, where Hemessen could have come into contact with the court painters Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen and Jan Gossart. Hemessen made an extensive trip to Italy during the 1520s, confirmed by his painted copy (untraced) of Andrea del Sarto’s fresco of Charity (Florence, Chiostro Scalzo), as well as the influence of Italian Renaissance art evident in his work. By 1524 Jan had become a master in the Guild of St Luke in Antwerp, where he established a workshop that flourished for over 30 years. Aided by a felicitous marriage, before 1535, to Barbara de Fevere, the daughter of a successful Antwerp cloth merchant, Hemessen evidently became a wealthy man. During the late 1530s and early 1540s his paintings no doubt commanded high prices, since in 1539 he was able to purchase a house on the Lombaardevest, where the Lombard pawnbrokers were located, and, just two years later, a second house on the fashionable Hochstetterstraat. The following members have entries:
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