Nothing is known for certain about the anonymous master. Some scholars have attempted to identify the artist as Jacob van Haarlem, who is documented as having lived and worked in
Haarlem from 1483 to 1509 and may have been a teacher to
Jan Mostaert, but this remains a speculation. The anonymous master is named after a diptych in
Brunswick, depicting
Mary with an infant Jesus,
Saint Anne and, opposite, a kneeling
Carthusian monk and
Saint Barbara. From this work, a number of other paintings have been identified as being by the same hand. The works by the Master of the Brunswick Diptych show similarities with those of
Geertgen tot Sint Jans, such as
the Rijksmuseum nativity, but the colours are generally lighter, his treatment of space and anatomy is less accomplished and the paintings more
miniature-like. In a panel painting presently in
Cologne, the master breaks new ground by depicting a domestic scene of a woman feeding a child for the first time in panel painting. ==References==