Gossaert, Gossart - or Mabuse? Appearing as Gossart in the Metropolitan Museum's recent survey, the early 16th-century Flemish artist now arrives as Gossaert at the National Gallery. Despite a collaboration between the two institutions that brings us this exceptionally fine display, on this they disagree: the Met returned to the spelling in the artist's signature, while the National Gallery sticks to the older version. Meanwhile, Mabuse, the artist's nickname, refers to the Walloon town (Maubeuge, ceded to France in 1678) where Gossaert was born.

Gossaert is a neglected figure in the pantheon of Old Masters. The Met's exhibition, which ended in January this year, was the first survey of this artist on American soil, while London hasn't had a dedicated exhibition in more than 45 years. The public should take this opportunity to see more of an artist who bridged the gap between the austere realism of Jan van Eyck, who died in 1441, and the fleshy Baroque voluptuousness of Peter Paul Rubens, born some 130 years later. Displaying Gossaert's work alongside a number of prints by Dürer to compare and contrast, and paintings by Flemish contemporaries, the National Gallery offers a deeper understanding of the artist.

Having been the first northern artist to travel to Rome to make copies of antique sculpture, Gossaert is credited with bringing the idealised sensuality of the Italian Renaissance to the earthier art of northern Europe (just think of the squat, rough-cheeked peasants of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a near-contemporary of Gossaert's). Gossaert's early work is extraordinarily detailed and often highly wrought in the high Gothic manner. In his paintings, too, fabric, flesh and intricate masonry work are all delicately rendered. The Adoration of the Kings (1510-15) is filled with anabundance of objects, animals, figures and variously coloured and textured fabrics. A composition as busy as this could topple into confusion, yet Gossaert creates order: stone tiles, arches and bodies provide the framing devices that draw the eye to the central figures of Virgin and Child.

After his visit to Rome in 1509 with his patron, the admiral and later bishop Philip of Burgundy, Gossaert's interest in the erotic possibilities of the nude are fully realised. Most arresting are his studies of Adam and Eve. In one drawing, Adam rests his head against Eve's breast, looking sexually spent. In another, Adam is seen gripping the branch of a tree as Eve clasps tufts of his hair. Their legs are entwined, but their faces and lips are not quite touching, suspended in that exquisite, charged moment before contact.

The portraits, however, are the highlight of this exhibition and there's a whole gallery devoted to them. Gossaert's sitters are often painted in front of illusionistic frames as if they might be occupying the viewer's space, while the detailed accoutrements of their professions - Portrait of a Merchant (1530) for instance, painted two years before Gossaert's death, offers an abundance of information to this sitter's desk-bound trade - render these static scenes sensual and beguiling.

Jan Gossaert's Renaissance
National Gallery, London WC2