Matthys Cock was born around 1509, the son of the Antwerp painter Jan de Cock and the elder brother of the artist, printer, and publisher Hieronymus Cock. Matthys presented a pupil to the guild in Antwerp in 1540 and died before 1548. Van Mander praises him as a landscape painter, and it has been suggested, without definite proof, that he journeyed to Italy. Although no paintings can be given to Matthys Cock with certainty, there is a greater consensus of opinion in attributing drawings to him, and several drawings are dated. [Hand, John Oliver, and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 3-6.]
Artist Bibliography
1906
Floerke, Hanns. Das Leben der niederländischen und deutschen Maler des Carel van Mander. 2 vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1906: 1:248-251.
1907
Edited by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart 1912, 7:145.
1927
Baldass, Ludwig. "Ein Landschaftsbild von Matthys Cock." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 61 (1927/1928): 90-96.
1932
Hoogewerff, G. J. "Matthijs Wellens de Cock." Feestbundel Prof. Dr. Willem Vogelsang. Leiden, 1932: 31-35.
1936
Hoogewerff, G. J. De Noord-Nederlandsche Schilderkunst. The Hague, 1936-1947: 3:364.
1955
Boon, K. G. "De tekenaar van het Errera-Schetsboek." Bulletin des Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 4 (1955): 220, fig. 4, 224-225.
1964
Faggin, Giorgio T. "Aspetti dell'influsso di Tiziano nei Paesi Bassi." Arte Veneta 18 (1964): 46-49.
1965
Zwollo, An. "De Landschaptekeningen van Cornelis Massys." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek. 16 (1965): 44.
1969
Fritz Grossmann to Colin Eisler, letter, 25 January 1969, in NGA curatorial files.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 92.
1986
Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 3-6.