Jan Stephan Van Calcar (1499-1546/50) Artwork valuations, appraisals and auction estimates

Jan Stephan Van Calcar was born in 1499 in the Duchy of Cleves. Vasari counts him among the students of Titian, whose school he entered in 1536, where he was accepted after having seen the accurate copies of the master's works. Read the full biography

Jan Stephan Van Calcar was born in 1499 in the Duchy of Cleves. Vasari counts him among the students of Titian, whose school he entered in 1536, where he was accepted after having seen the accurate copies of the master's works. Calcar first worked in Dordrecht, but spent much of his life in Naples, and there, as Vasari narrates, "the most beautiful hopes had been conceived while respecting his future progress".

Giorgio Vasari, and others, attributes to Calcar the eleven large woodcut illustrations of anatomical studies that accompanied the work of Andreas Vesalius. The most notable is the anatomical study of the human body entitled De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (1543).

It is likely that he also drew the portraits of the artists in the first edition of Vasari's Lives.

He was also a great imitator of Giorgione, in fact those who write about him join in stating that his imitations of the great Venetian artists, and also of Raphael, were so extraordinary that they deceived many critics of the time.