Biography

According to Karel van Mander he was the son of a common painter, the twin brother of the painter Gillis Mostaert

Gillis Mostaert

Gillis Mostaert was a Southern Netherlandish painter.-Biography:According to Karel van Mander, Mostaert's father was from Hulst, near Antwerp. According to the RKD, he was a painter, but he sent his sons to his own father Jan Mostaert in Haarlem...

 and the grandson of the painter Jan Mostaert

Jan Mostaert

Jan Mostaert, also known by the names Joannes Sinapius and Master Of Oultremont was a Dutch Renaissance painter of portraits and religious subjects, though his most famous creation was the "West Indies Landscape"....

. Gillis looked so much like him that their own father couldn't tell them apart. Both brothers joined the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1555. While his brother Gillis studied landscape painting in Haarlem from Jan Mandijn

Jan Mandijn

Jan Mandijn , was a Dutch Renaissance painter.-Biography:According to Van Mander in 1604, he was the teacher of Gillis Mostaert, and he could paint funny scenes like Hieronymus Bosch....

, Frans became a pupil of Herri met de Bles

Herri met de Bles

Herri met de Bles was a Flemish Northern Renaissance and Mannerist landscape painter...

 and later became an inspiration for Jan Soens

Jan Soens

Jan Soens , also known as Giovanni Sons, was a Dutch painter from 's-Hertogenbosch.-Biography:According to Karel van Mander he moved to Antwerp to live with a schoolmaster named Jacob Boon, whereupon he taught himself the rudiments of painting...

, who worked for a period in Gillis Mostaert's workshop in Antwerp before leaving for Parma

Parma

Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....

, Italy.

Frans died of the plague after his new pupil Bartholomeus Spranger

Bartholomeus Spranger

Bartholomeus Spranger was a Flemish Northern Mannerist painter, draughtsman, and etcher. He was born in Antwerp in the Habsburg Netherlands .-Biography:...

had been with him for a few weeks. Few of his works survive, though he had been a respectable landscape painter before his death.