a South Netherlandish painter, at the end of the period of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born and died in Antwerp. His father was the sculptor Jan Mertens the Elder, whose family is thought to have originated in Tournai. Mertens the Younger was apprenticed to the painter Jan Gossaert in 1505, and he became a master of the Antwerp painters' guild in 1509.
