Anonymous master

In art history, an anonymous master is an Old Master whose work is known, but whose name is lost.

Only in the Renaissance did individual artists in Western Europe acquire personalities known by their peers (some listed by Vasari in his Lives of the Artists), such as those known by :

The idea of a named and recognised painter originated among art historians early in the 20th century, who were attributing works they recognised to known painters. They later went back on some of these attributions, renaming as anonymous the painters they had formerly named. One example is the case of Pier Francesco Fiorentino, to whom Bernard Berenson attributed a number of works which were later re-attributed to Pseudo Pier Francesco Fiorentino, a Florence copyist. Some painters have even been described as anonymous (even many times like Barthélemy Eyck) before later being recognised. They thus held several names historically (those who are noted on the page devoted to them), although doubts continue surrounding some, such as Giovanni Gaddi (after 1333 – 1383) maybe the Master of the Misericordia dell’Accademia.

In recent years the names of a variety of artists who were formerly listed as "anonymous" have become known; accordingly scholarly writings and museum labels have been changed to reflect their new identities. Much the most famous of these is the Master of Flémalle (c 1378–1445), painter of the comté de Hainaut, who was established as Robert Campin. Other examples include:

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