Master of the Von Groote Adoration

This name covers one of the busiest corners of early 16th-century Antwerp, and perhaps more than one hand. Between about 1500 and 1520 a group of painters there worked in a deliberately lavish style, crowded scenes, twisting poses, fanciful costume and architecture, that the scholar Max Friedländer later labelled Antwerp Mannerism. Because nearly all of them stayed anonymous, they are known by their pictures rather than their names.

This particular master is called after an Adoration of the Magi once in the von Groote collection. In it the three kings arrive before the newborn Christ in a swirl of gold, brocade and exotic dress, and he frames the scene with two Old Testament episodes that comment on it. Adorations were his stock subject, turned out for a booming export trade in devotional paintings.

Whether all the works under this name come from one painter or from a shared workshop is still argued, which is why he remains a label more than a person.