Left wing of a triptych with the donor Matelief Dammasz and St Paul (inner wing), and the Erythraean Sibyl (outer wing)

Entry

This work is very probably the left wing of a triptych, of which, as Preibisz first noticed in 1911, the side with the donor and St Paul is the interior and the side with the Erythraean Sibyl is the exterior (fig. b).

The ten Sibyls were pagan prophetesses who foresaw the life of Christ. The Sibyl of Erythraea was the oldest and most important one, featuring in Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, and was regarded as the prophetess of the Last Judgement until the 14th century, after which she was mostly connected to Christ’s death and resurrection. Since the 15th century she was associated with the incarnation of Christ and the glory of Mary.¹¹ In this painting, she is depicted monumentally and takes up most of the picture surface. Clad in a yellow and golden robe, she is seated on a rock holding her book in her right hand and gazing to the right, her left hand pointing in the same direction at something outside the picture. De Jongh suggested that she is pointing at her prophecy, which was revealed on the centre panel once the triptych was opened.¹² Her pose, as Veldman recognised,¹³ is similar to that of the Virgin in Heemskerck’s St Luke Painting the Virgin in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes,¹⁴ whose crossed feet seem to be based on Michelangelo’s figure of Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel.¹⁵ In the background is a green, hilly landscape, and at the foot of a high rocky mountain in the distance there is a town, in which De Jongh recognised three Delft landmarks, albeit not in topographical order: the Town Hall, the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk.¹⁶

On the other side of the panel, the donor, accompanied by his patron saint Paul, is kneeling at his prie-dieu. The inscription ‘Te Maten Lief Dammasz.’ on the prie-dieu and the coat of arms with nine daisies, which is also repeated in the patron’s ring, reveal, as Moes first recorded, his family name Matelief (madelief means daisy) and patronymic Dammasz, but not his first name.¹⁷ Harrison identified the donor as the Latinist Gulielmus (William) Lindanus Dammasus (Dordrecht 1505 - Ghent 1588), who served as Vicar-General of Leeuwarden, Bishop of Roermond and papal attendant to Gregory XII in Rome,¹⁸ but so far no connection has been found between him and Heemskerck, nor between him and Delft. Grosshans interpreted the inscription to mean ‘Live with temperance, dear Dammasz’ (maten meaning measure and life meaning dear).¹⁹ An undated portrait of the same Matelief Dammasz now hangs in Cornell University (fig. a), and is generally regarded as a work by Heemskerck’s assistants,²⁰ in which the sitter’s pose and appearance (apart from the beret) are identical to the Amsterdam painting.

Just like Heemskerck’s Portrait of Johannes Colmannus (SK-C-507), this work belongs to a group of six paintings by the artist recorded in 1667 by the historian Dirck van Bleyswijck as hanging in the Town Hall of Delft and which are assumed originally to have been Delft commissions. This one hung in the Burgomasters’ Chamber and, as Van Bleyswijck writes, was turned around annually so that both sides were given equal exposure.²¹ We do not know where this painting was prior to its arrival in the Town Hall. Van Mander writes that there were various altarpieces by Heemskerck hanging in Delft’s Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk during the painter’s lifetime. It is assumed that the triptych with the Erythraean Sibyl was originally painted for one of these churches, or for another religious institution in Delft, and that the left wing was the only part to have survived the 1566 iconoclasm.²² It is likely that the work was moved to the Town Hall in the early 1570s, when the town confiscated the possessions of the newly reformed churches and monasteries.²³

Apart from the meticulously executed face and hands, the Erythraean Sibyl consists mainly of thin paint layers applied in a sketchy manner, which can be explained within the context of the tradition to execute panel exteriors in either grisaille or with a brisk painting technique.²⁴ Sibyl’s robe consists of just a single layer of yellow paint of a pigment called orpiment, applied directly onto the imprimatur and highlighted with lead white. Due to many years of exposure to light, the orpiment has faded, revealing most of the broadly sketched underdrawing,²⁵ which led some specialists in the past to suspect that the painting was never completed.²⁶ This rare exposure of the underdrawing offers us an insight into the artist’s working method, illustrating his liberty to adjust the composition during the painting process.²⁷

More paint layers were applied in the donor portrait, and as a result the underdrawing is only slightly visible to the naked eye in some places, such as St Paul’s robe. Based on what is visible, the underdrawings on both sides of the panel are similar.

The reconstruction of the original triptych has always intrigued scholars. It is agreed that the interior right wing showed a second donor, either Matelief Dammasz’s wife or, if he was a clergyman, a family member or fellow clergyman with his or her patron saint, possibly St Peter. On the outer right wing there could well have been a second Sibyl,²⁸ or, as Grosshans suggested, the prophet Isaiah, who sits opposite the Erythraean Sibyl on Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.²⁹ As for the central panel, specialists have proposed a Nativity,³⁰ and a Lamentation or Entombment.³¹ Considering the rock formation behind Matelief, which, as Grosshans proposed, could well have continued onto the central panel in the shape of a cave, as in Heemskerck’s Brussels Entombment,³² the option of a Lamentation or an Entombment seems most likely.

(Ilona van Tuinen)