A memorial window for Claes van Ruyven and Geertgen tot Sint Jans' altar wing in Vienna

Karel van Mander tells us that Geertgen tot Sint Jans lived in Haarlem with the Hospitallers of St John, that he painted an altar-piece for them and that he died c. 18 years old. Opinions vary as to the dates of his life and career. Most scholars following Max J. Friedlander, considered the decades between 1460/65 and 1490/95 most likely, while others, notably Albert Chatelet, prefer to place his activity between c. 1465 and 1475 and, consequently, his birth around 1445. Chatelet pointed out that Geertgen's name does not appear in documents concerning the admission of pensioners and concluded that the artist's stay with the Hospitallers must have begun prior to 1471 when new rules were agreed upon by the brethren and their newly-elected commander (or 'preceptor'), Nicolas van Schoten. But given that Geertgen seems to have been merely a servant brother, one cannot accept this as evidence. His name does appear in the preceptoria's liber memoriarum, where he is mentioned as 'the painter' and as having been buried in the cloister - unfortunately without the year of his death. An important source for Geertgen's style must have been work by Hugo van der Goes dateable to the 1470's. Evidence that Geertgen was influenced by van der Goes' Adoration of the Magi (the so-called Monforte altar) in Berlin is to be found in several of his works, including the Vienna Lamentation, the only panel of a large triptych that survived the pillage of the Haarlem preceptoria in April 1573.