Van STAR Dirk Jacobsz (Vellert)

“Master of the star” (Antwerp, active 1511 –1544)

Stained glass artist, painter and Dutch engraver, probably born in Amsterdam between 1480 and 1490 but active in Antwerp where he died around 1549. In 1511 he joined the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp and was the dean of the guild in 1518 and 1526. He created high quality artistic stained glass, often with ornamental motifs taken from classical art: vases, masks, garlands.
The precious windows of King’s College Chapel in Cambridge are derived from his drawings.
Lodovico Guicciardini, a Florentine writer and merchant who lived for a long time in Antwerp (1567), described Dirk Van Star Vellert as one of the most important stained-glass painters in the Netherlands. The stained glass window of the church of the Virgin in Antwerp (1539-40) was commissioned to him. Although he was little known in his day, he was nominated three times by Dürer in his diary during his trip to the Netherlands in 1520.
Dirk Van Star was also a fine engraver who executed subjects of his own invention but inspired in style to the works of Dürer and Van Leyden.
Many paintings are attributed to him on the basis of the clear correspondence with his prints.