Jan Stephanus van Kalcker (GIOVANNI DA CALCAR and JOANNES
STEPHANUS CALCARENSIS.) Flemish painter, native of the Duchy of
Cleves; b. between 1499 and 1510; d. at Naples, 1546. Vasari
refers to this painter several times, mainly with respect to his
having been a pupil of Titian, entering his school in 1536, and
to his faculty for copying the works of that master with
extraordinary accuracy. Kalcker appears to have worked first at
Dordrecht, but the greater part of his life was spent at Naples,
and there, as Vasari tells us, "the fairest hopes had been
conceived respecting his future progress." He was responsible
for the eleven large plates of anatomical studies which were
engraved for Andrea Vesalio as illustrations for his work on
anatomy, and Vasari praises them very highly. Kalcker is also
said to have drawn the portraits of the artists in the early
edition of Vasari's "Lives". By some writers he has been
declared to have been a close imitator of Giorgione ; all who
write about him unite in stating that his