All works in Early Netherlandish Paintings

Jan van Scorel (workshop of)

The Baptism of Christ

c. 1535

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 128 cm × width 98.5 cm
depth 8 cm

Technical notes

The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (31.3, 35.2 and 31.8 cm), 0.8-0.9 cm thick. At one point the panel was planed down slightly for the attachment of a cradle (now removed). The planks are joined with wooden dowels: the dowel holes are visible in X-ray and are evenly spaced, three along each of the two joins. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1457. The panel could have been ready for use by 1468, but a date in or after 1482 is more likely. The panel has been grounded and painted to the edges. Some underdrawing is visible to the naked eye, but infrared reflectography reveals underdrawing in black chalk throughout the composition (fig. a). The underdrawing is freely sketched (see below), and some features are indicated in a most abbreviated manner, such as a caret shape for a foreshortened nose or splayed twig-like lines for feet. In the underdrawing, the tree extends under the cloud in the upper left corner; infrared reflectography also reveals a change in Christ’s knees. Although a few of the cross-sections include a medium-rich priming, underdrawing is directly on the ground in almost all of the samples, a feature that differs from Scorel’s usual working procedure, in which underdrawing lies on a lead-white priming. Study with the stereomicroscope and sampling reveals that the greens were obtained by mixing small azurite crystals with yellow as well as occasional red and white particles. The figures and trees were left in reserve during the painting process, and many areas exhibit a smooth, wet-in-wet paint application.

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: A. Wallert, RMA, nos. 124/1-7, 2006
infrared reflectography: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, RKD, nos. AB 92:1-28, 11 August 1976
paint samples: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, with the researcher, nos. A 98/1-9, 1 October 1977
infrared reflectography: M Faries, RKD, nos. MF 95:23-24, 28 January 1982
condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 15 March 2005
condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 15 March 2005
infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / A. Wallert [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG334, 6 April 2005
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 20 June 2005
X-radiography: A. Wallert / A. van Oosterwijk [2], RMA, no. 1781 (1-15), 4 May 2006

Literature scientific examination and reports

Faries 1983, pp. 121-23; Wallert/Van Oosterwijk 2009

Condition

Fair. The paint layer is abraded and the varnish is slightly discoloured.

Conservation

M. Bijl, 1979 - 1980: complete restoration

Provenance

…; ? sale, Frans Jan Baron van Heeckeren van Brandsenburg (†) et al., Utrecht (C.J. van Velthoven), 17 June 1846 sqq., p. 11, no. 15, as Scorel, 1525 (‘De doop door Johannes in den Jordaan’); …; donated to the museum by Jonkheer Victor de Stuers (1843-1916), as Scorel, December 1895; on loan to the Municipality of Naaldwijk, 1935-75

Object number: SK-A-1636

Credit line: Gift of Jonkheer V. de Stuers

The artist

Jan van Scorel (Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562), workshop of

Jan van Scorel was born in 1495, according to Karel van Mander, in the village of Schoorl northwest of Alkmaar, the natural son of a priest, Andries Ouckeyn, and Dieuwer Aertsdr. He died in Utrecht in 1562 and was buried in the Mariakerk, where a funerary monument was erected that contained a portrait of Scorel by his pupil, Antonio Moro. Van Mander praised Scorel for having visited Italy, returning with a new and more beautiful manner of painting; and the artist is still recognised today for the widespread influence that his Italianate style had in the northern Netherlands.

Jan van Scorel was not only a painter but also a canon. His church office in the Mariakerk, Utrecht, prohibited him from marrying, but his will (1537) tells us that he lived with Agatha van Schoonhoven as his common-law wife; the date 1529 on Scorel’s portrait of her must mark the period when the two met.¹ One of the couple’s six children, Peter (c. 1530-1622) became a painter. Van Mander’s remark that Scorel ‘was very familiar with and liked by all the great lords of the Netherlands,’ is almost an understatement. The artist built up an influential network among the clergy, beginning with Pope Adrian VI, the artist’s protector when he arrived in Rome around 1522, and including Herman van Lokhorst, dean of Oudmunster (St Saviour), Scorel’s first, important patron in Utrecht, and other fellow ecclesiastics. In addition, Scorel had high court connections. In the negotiations surrounding his canonry, Scorel’s sponsors were none other than the stadholders Henry III of Nassau-Breda and Floris of Egmond, the most powerful nobles at the Court of Holland at the time. In c. 1532-33, Scorel visited the courts at Breda and Mechelen, where he met the neo-Latin poet, Janus Secundus, and was at the court in Brussels around 1552. Scorel also worked for the municipality of Utrecht and received payments from the city for his activities associated with the triumphal entries into Utrecht of Charles V (1540) and Philip II (1549).

Early sources suggest Scorel began his training as an apprentice in Alkmaar or Haarlem, but neither suggestions have been substantiated. Van Mander’s account is more credible when it comes to the second step in Scorel’s training: after attending the Latin School in Alkmaar, Scorel moved to Amsterdam around 1512, where he became an assistant in Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen’s workshop. Van Mander also reports that Scorel studied briefly with Jan Gossart, who came to Utrecht after his protector, Philip of Burgundy, had been elected bishop in 1517. By 1518-19 Scorel left the Netherlands on a long journey whose route was described in detail by Karel van Mander, eventually taking the painter to Venice, the Holy Land and Rome.

Scorel’s stays in both Venice and Rome can be construed as a continuation of his training, for he was profoundly influenced by his new surroundings. After returning to Venice from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1520, Scorel painted a number of portraits and landscapes, and he may have ventured on to Rome after the Utrecht native, Adriaan Florisz Boeyens, was elected pope in January 1522. According to Van Mander, Scorel not only had access to antique statuary as overseer of the Vatican collections in the Belvedere, an appointment he received from Pope Adrian VI, he was also able to make drawings after Raphael, Michelangelo and the works of other Italian masters. Adrian VI’s promise to Scorel of a canonry in Utrecht led the artist to settle there in 1524 after his return from Rome.

Van Mander’s life of Jan van Scorel is the primary source for the reconstruction of the painter’s oeuvre. He knew, for instance, that during his early travels, the painter worked for nobility in Carinthia (Austria), where Scorel’s first signed and dated painting, the 1519 Holy Kinship altarpiece, can still be seen today.² The major touchstone of Scorel’s first years in Utrecht, the Triptych with the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem painted as a memorial for members of the Lokhorst family around 1526,³ is described at length by Van Mander. When Jan van Scorel moved to Haarlem (1527-30), Van Mander tells us that he was received by Simon van Sanen, Commander of the Knights of St John. Both Van Mander’s account and the inventories of the order mention a number of key works that Scorel completed during this period: The Baptism of Christ, Adam and Eve⁴ and Mary Magdalen (SK-A-372). Scorel’s Haarlem period was an extremely critical and productive one: he established his basic repertoire of subjects, received more prestigious commissions, such as the Crucifixion Altarpiece for the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (now lost), rented a house and took on students, among them Maarten van Heemskerck, and expanded and standardised the operations of his workshop.

Scorel’s ‘most flourishing period’, according to Karel van Mander, followed upon the artist’s return to Utrecht by September 1530. Unfortunately, many of the works Van Mander describes from this period have been lost. The Finding of the True Cross triptych, probably commissioned by Henry III of Nassau-Breda in the mid-1530s, has survived, although in poor condition.⁵ Some remarkable discoveries were made in the late 20th century of altarpieces executed by Scorel and his shop around 1540 for the abbey of Marchiennes in what is now northern France. Fragments survive from an Altarpiece with St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, and the Polyptych with Sts James the Greater and Stephen lacks only one wing.⁶ These works, along with the Landscape with Bathsheba of c. 1540-45 (SK-A-670), provide us with a better understanding of Scorel’s late style. His oeuvre consists of some 60 extant paintings, between 20 and 25 drawings, and 6 designs for prints.

In addition to Maarten van Heemskerck, Antonio Moro and Scorel’s son Peter were apprentices in Scorel’s shop. Others, such as Lambert Sustris, may have had brief contact with his workshop as assistants. Van Mander describes Scorel as the typical uomo universale of his time. He was skilled in languages, wrote poetry as well as songs, acted as an amateur archaeologist and marine engineer, and participated in an ambitious land development scheme, the reclamation of the Zijpe in north Holland.

References
Lampsonius 1572 (1956), no. 17; Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), pp. 21, 26-30, 52, 63-64; Van Mander 1604, fols. 234r-36v; Muller 1880; Justi 1881, pp. 193-210; Scheibler/Bode 1881, pp. 211-14; Hoogewerff 1923a; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 118-56; Hoogewerff in Thieme/Becker XXX, 1936, pp. 401-04; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 23-191; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 65-81; Faries 1970, pp. 2-24 (documents); Faries 1972; Faries in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 179-80; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 268-90; Faries in Turner 1996, XXVIII, pp. 215-29; Faries 1997, pp. 107-16; Van Thiel-Stroman in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 303-04; Faries in coll. cat. Utrecht 2011, pp. 167-69

M. Faries, 2010
Updated by the author, 2016

Entry

The Rijksmuseum’s Baptism of Christ depicts the moment when John the Baptist, seen here from behind, baptises Christ while God the Father, emerging from the cloud above, speaks the words, ‘This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’ (Matthew 3:16-17; Mark 1:10-11; Luke 3:22; John 1:32). The dove of the Holy Ghost, which was added only in the paint stage, can be seen at the edge of the cloud on the vertical axis linking the persons of the Trinity. Although there is a vast landscape behind the figures, the panel has a vertical orientation. The composition is also asymmetrical, with a greater number of figures gathered on the hill that rises on a diagonal to the left. Some proselytes disrobe in anticipation of their baptism, while others look up in dismay at the appearance of God the Father.

The Baptism has received little attention in the literature. Ever since Hoogewerff first published it in 1923, scholars have consistently regarded it as a product of Scorel’s studio, noting the over-exaggerated modelling of the figures and schematised rendering of the landscape.⁷ More recently, infrared reflectography revealed the hand of the master, Jan van Scorel, in the underdrawing.⁸ Scorel laid out the composition in an exceptionally fluid and freely drawn manner with deft and forcefully applied lines (fig. a). The contours are often heavy, with interlocking arcs and occasional jagged shapes, and hatching consists of bold zones of diagonals and zigzags. Faries was the first to point out similarities to those panels known to have been underdrawn by Jan van Scorel in the altarpiece with The Finding of the True Cross in the Grote Kerk, Breda.⁹ Another painting with a related underdrawing is The Lamentation with Members of the Egmond Family in Utrecht.¹⁰ These works, along with The Baptism, represent a type of collaboration which is known to occur in Jan van Scorel’s shop: one in which the master designs the composition and one or more studio assistants execute the paint stage.¹¹

In 2005, a compositional fragment appeared on the London art market depicting figures at the edge of a stream (fig. b). In style and colour this painting is remarkably similar to the Rijksmuseum Baptism, and when placed to the right seems to be a viable extension of the composition. In fact, some of the figures in the background of the London fragment look up to the left on a very steep angle, in the direction of what must have been a heavenly figure in the missing portion of the composition. Although the Amsterdam and London panels seem to form one composition which was separated at some unknown date, there are other options to consider in this case. The two panels might have been intended as wings. In 1550, Scorel was contracted to paint exactly that: a Baptism that extended over two wings.¹² Or, the two panels might have been separate baptism scenes.

At first glance, information about the panels’ supports seems to argue for the last possibility. The dendrochronological dating estimates for the two panels differ by 50 years. In addition, the supports have been joined differently. It may be possible, however, to account for some of these discrepancies. The dendrochronology of The Baptism¹³ is an obvious example of a too-early dating.¹⁴ A certain percentage of too-early dates can be expected; Peter Klein has found in some instances that trimming away as little as one centimetre of wood can eliminate as many as 20 years of growth.¹⁵ The dendrochronology of the London fragment, estimating a probable date of use of c. 1532, is thus more plausible for both of these works.¹⁶ The London panel, in contrast to The Baptism, consists of three vertically grained planks glued together without any dowels.¹⁷ This panel shows clear signs of cutting at the top and bottom, and may have been cut down on all four sides. Assuming that the outer planks were once approx. 10 cm wider, their width would be closer to the size of the Baptism’s planks.¹⁸

Greater weight must be given to information about the two panels’ underdrawing and painting technique. Technical study of the London panel revealed an underdrawing that is virtually identical to that of The Baptism, both in overall style and in more detailed features such as the depiction of foreshortened heads (fig. c). The underdrawing material in both panels, identified as black chalk, has a similar elemental composition.¹⁹ Sampling revealed corresponding painting practices: the underdrawing was applied directly on the ground in both panels.²⁰ Since this feature is unusual for the Scorel group as a whole, its occurrence in these two works is significant. Both panels have some blues with a light blue underpainting layer containing some red lake in the admixture.²¹ The green for the foliage in the two panels was obtained by a mixture of blue and an unidentified yellow pigment.²² Such a mixture is not unheard of in the Scorel group, but it is unusual.²³ Moreover, the diffraction patterns for the blue and yellow were so close that they must derive from the same paint mixture.²⁴ The overall painting process is also the same in both panels, in that the master laid out the composition and the painting was finished by another hand.

Other features also argue for a single, unified composition. Baptism scenes in Jan van Scorel’s circle normally show John the Baptist and Christ near the centre.²⁵ If one postulates that the Amsterdam and London panels were two separate paintings, as some have done,²⁶ then the resulting compositions deviate from tradition in that one has the main figures offset to the right, the other with figures offset to the left. The most telling argument, however, is that it is almost impossible to explain how the hypothetical larger composition of the London fragment could at some point in its history be cut off at almost precisely the point where it matches the Baptism²⁷ Given the correspondence of the underdrawing and the particulars of painting technique mentioned above, it seems more reasonable to accept the Rijksmuseum Baptism and the London fragment as two parts of the same composition. For some as yet unexplained reason Scorel’s shop painted a horizontal panel made up of vertical planks, an uncommon but not unique occurrence, and had to combine two vertical panel sections that were joined differently.

Although the Rijksmuseum painting draws upon Jan van Scorel’s Baptism of c. 1530 in Haarlem, its dating is somewhat later.²⁸ The painter, in following the twisting, muscular figures of Scorel’s underdrawing, produced a work that is close to the monumental compositions of the Breda altarpiece and related works, such as the large Lamentation in the Centraal Museum, Utrecht. Given the current tendency to date these works to the mid-1530s,²⁹ the Rijksmuseum Baptism should be dated to the same period, c. 1535.

M. Faries, 2010
Literature updated, 2016

Literature

Hoogewerff 1923a, p. 140; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, p. 124, note 1 (as circle of Scorel); Utrecht 1955, p. 41, no. 22; Faries 1983a, pp. 121-23; Van Oosterwijk 2006; Wallert/Van Oosterwijk 2009; Van Suchtelen 2015, p. 42, note 17

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Collection catalogues

1903, p. 246, no. 2196 (as Scorel); 1976, p. 512, no. A 1636, with earlier literature; 1992, p. 84, no. A 1636

Citation

M. Faries, 2010, 'workshop of Jan van Scorel, The Baptism of Christ, c. 1535', in J.P. Filedt Kok and M. Ubl (eds.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5446

(accessed 27 November 2024 05:47:05).

Figures

fig. b Workshop of Jan van Scorel, compositional fragment with figures along the edge of a stream, c. 1535. Oil on panel, 84 x 66.7 cm. London, Johnny van Haeften

fig. c Detail of the infrared reflectogram of the London compositional fragment (fig. b), showing the figures in the middleground (© Stichting RKD)