The Shadow of the Monogram The identity of the Brunswick Monogrammist remains a void in the historical record. We know the hand, but not the name. In the mid-to-late 16th century, this Netherlandish Renaissance painter moved through the artistic landscape of Northern Europe, leaving behind a signature that appears only once. It is a singular, interlocked mark—the letters J, V, A, M, S, and L—etched into the Parable of the Great Supper. This work, currently held in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Brunswick, Germany, acts as the only anchor for an otherwise anonymous existence. The artist’s o…