THE name Lucas van Leyden has an authoritative ring but evokes
no specific idea in our minds. He enjoys full and genuine popula-
rity only with collectors and connoisseurs of engravings, who value
very highly the precious prints, good impressions of which are rare.
Everywhere, especially in Italy, paintings wrongly attributed to him sully
his name and confuse our conception of his art. And where indeed could
a painting be found with sufficiently salient features and sharply enough
defined in character to be capable of upholding his honour! A long un-
interrupted sequence of engravings authenticated by signatures and often
inscribed with the date reveal the draughtsman. If, armed with this
knowledge, the critic then cautiously approaches the paintings, van
Mander's account will come to his aid.

Carel van Mander, who around 1600 collected with honest enthusiasm
the material for his unfortunately rather meagre Lives of the Painters, waxes
almost eloquent when he comes to speak of Lucas. In his desire to do
justice to the memory of the esteemed engraver he made eager and suc-
cessful enquiries from the descendants of the master at Leyden, and, we
may take it, picked up every scrap of the available tradition.

Lucas, so van Mander tells us, was born in 1494 as the son of the able
painter Huig Jacobsz, from whom he received his first instruction. He
had a weak constitution, was small in stature and from early boyhood on
tireless in his devotion to art. He worked in his native town until his
premature end. The biographer knows of only one journey that his hero
made, through the Netherlands in 1527 in the company of Jan Gossaert.
From Dürer's Diary of his Netherlandish Journey we know that Lucas
was in Antwerp in 1521. The Dutch painter died as early as 1533.

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