(b Meulebeke, nr Courtrai, West Flanders, 1548; d Amsterdam, 11 Sept 1606). Poet, writer, painter and draughtsman.

Before 1568 van Mander was apprenticed to Lucas de Heere, a painter and poet in Ghent, and afterwards to Pieter Vlerick (1539–81) in Courtrai and Doornik. Between c. 1570 and 1573 he lived in his native Meulebeke, where he applied himself to writing plays and poetry. In 1573 he went to Italy, where he first paid a brief visit to Florence; in Terni he was commissioned to paint a fresco for a count of the St Bartholomew’s Night Massacre, in which the death of Gaspard de Coligny in 1572 was represented. Three sections of the fresco, restored and partly overpainted, are still extant in the Palazzo Spada Terni. In Rome he met Bartholomeus Spranger and became a close friend of Gaspard Heuvick (1550–after 1590) from Oudenaarde, who was working in Bari and elsewhere. In 1577, or shortly afterwards, van Mander was working in Basle; he then moved on to Krems. Spranger encouraged him to go to Vienna, where he worked with Hans Mont on the triumphal arch on the Bauermarkt, erected for the occasion of Rudolph II’s arrival in July 1577. After this, van Mander returned to Meulebeke, passing through Nuremberg on the journey. Because of the religious turmoil and uprising against the Spanish, van Mander and his family, who were Mennonites, kept wandering from place to place; he stayed in Courtrai and Bruges and finally fled from the southern Netherlands to Haarlem, where he arrived penniless but remained for 20 years.

Part of the Mander, van family

• Mander, Karel van, I (1548-1606)
  • Academy, §3: The spread of the academic idea
  • Mander, van
  • Netherlands, the, §III, 4(ii): Painting and graphic arts, c 1550–c 1680: Haarlem
  • Prints, §IV, 2: Publishers
  • attributions
    • Muller, Jan
  • collaboration
    • Coninxloo, van (i): (2) Gillis van Coninxloo II, §1: Early training in Antwerp and work in Frankenthal, before 1595
    • Gheyn, de: (1) Jacques de Gheyn II
    • Isaacsz., Pieter
    • Spranger, Bartholomäus, §2: Work at the court of Rudolf II
  • groups and movements
    • Haarlem, §2(ii): Artistic community
    • Romanism
  • patrons and collectors
    • Hals: (1) Frans Hals, §1: Life and work
    • Nicquet
  • pupils
    • Hals: (1) Frans Hals, §5: Critical reception and posthumous reputation
    • Pot, Hendrik
  • reproductive prints by others
    • Dolendo
  • teachers
    • Heere, de: (1) Lucas de Heere
  • translated writings
    • Sandrart, Joachim von, §2: Writings
  • works
    • Catalogue, §3: Catalogues raisonnés
    • Copper, §2(iv): Painting support
    • Iconographic handbook, §2(ii): From the 12th–17th century: Secular history and mythology
    • Mander, van: (1) Karel van Mander I, §3: Artistic work
    • Mander, van: (1) Karel van Mander I, §3(i): Drawings
    • Mander, van: (1) Karel van Mander I, §3(ii): Paintings
    • Netherlands, the, §XV: Art education
    • Netherlands, the, §XVII: Historiography
  • writings
    • Art history, §I, 2: Historical development, 15th century to the late 19th
    • Dürer: (1) Albrecht Dürer, §V: Critical reception and posthumous reputation
    • Dürer Renaissance, §1: Literary origins
    • Ground, §3: History and use
    • History painting, §I, 3: 17th century
    • Humanism, §3: Humanism and the visual arts
    • Netherlands, the, §III, 2: Painting and graphic arts, c 1400–c 1525
    • Ovid
    • Treatise, §II, 4: Painting, 17th and 18th centuries: Baroque and Neo-classicism
    • illustrated
      • Mander, van: (1) Karel van Mander I, §2(ii): Writings: The Schilder-boeck