Object data
oil on panel
support: height 80.5 cm × width 109 cm
depth 7 cm
Marinus van Reymerswale (attributed to)
St Jerome in his Study
c. 1535 - c. 1545
Technical notes
The support consists of three horizontally grained oak planks (23, 29 and 28.5 cm). The panel, which has been planed down to approx. 0.5 cm, has a slightly convex deformation and has been covered with linen and wax. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1520. The panel could have been ready for use by 1531, but a date in or after 1545 is more likely. The off-white ground was applied thinly up to the edges of the panel. An underdrawing (with a brush) is visible with the naked eye in St Jerome’s face, but could not be detected with infrared reflectography. The saint’s figure and the objects were reserved. The paint is rather opaque. The face and hands were executed rather precisely and St Jerome’s red garment was painted wet in wet.
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG400, 11 May 2006
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 11 May 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 29 August 2007
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 28 January 2009
Condition
Poor. There are several large areas of paint loss, especially in the upper part of the painting. There are four horizontal cracks, approx. 5 to 15 cm long, in the upper two planks.
Conservation
- L. Kuiper, 1978
- K. Schreuder, 2008 - 2009: complete restoration
Provenance
…; collection Alphonse Lambert Eugène Ridder de Stuers (1841-1919), Paris;1 bequeathed to the museum by his daughter, Marguerite I.V.E. Countess von Oberndorff-de Stuers (1878-1930), Lausanne, 1931; on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, since 2001
Object number: SK-A-3123
Credit line: M.I.E.V., Countess von Oberndorff-de Stuers Bequest, Lausanne
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Marinus van Reymerswale (? Antwerp, Zierikzee or Reymerswael c. 1490 - ? Goes 1546/57), attributed to
It is assumed that Marinus van Reymerswale was registered in the Antwerp ledgers in 1509 as Moryn Claeszone, Zeelander - a pupil of the glass painter Symon van Dale. It is believed that he was a son of the painter Claes van Ziericsee, whose name appears in the guild ledgers as a free master in 1475 and from whom Marinus may have learned the basic principles of painting.
The name Marinus van Reymerswale was never registered in Antwerp as that of a free master, and it is generally assumed that he set up as a painter in Middelburg or Zierikzee after his apprenticeship. Guicciardini mentions a Marino di Sirissea and Van Mander a Marino di Siressa as a miniaturist. Van Mander had few facts about Van Reymerswale, but does say that many of his paintings were in Zeeland in his day.
Van Reymerswale may be the same person as the Marinus Nicolai de Romerswalis Traiectensis Diocesis, or the Marinus Nicolaas of Reymerswael in the diocese of Utrecht, who enrolled to study law in Louvain in 1504. The five years between Marinus’s enrolment in Louvain and registration in Antwerp were just enough for him to acquire a licentiate in law. This would also explain the scholarship of his often flawless Latin in the painted documents in such works as his compositions with St Jerome. The fact that all the datable works fall within the period 1533-45 could indicate that he had a second career. It is possible that when he was not painting he held a prominent position in the banking or tax world of the small Zeeland town of Reymerswael. On some of the documents painted in his works there are references to or the names of traceable residents of the town, which argues for his familiarity with it. One of the documents bears the name Marinus Bankhouders (Marinus Bankers), which has been interpreted as a reference to the painter himself and to his possible second occupation.
Mackor recently uncovered new biographical information about the painter.2 Between 1540 and 1546 there are no fewer than 11 mentions in the Goes archives of a Marinus de Schilder (Marinus the painter), often in connection with arguments about small sums of money. A document of 9 April 1540 relates to an arrears of payment for a trip on a ferry.3 Since Marinus last identified himself on his paintings as ‘Van Reymerswale’ in 1540, it is likely that he moved to the more prosperous town of Goes in that year. Another reason for the move was his probable marriage to a woman called Lysbet. The marriage itself is not documented, but on 22 February 1557 the Goes Chamber of Orphans accepted responsibility for ‘Lysbet, ... widow of Marinus the painter’ and her two sons aged 16 and 11.4 The boys’ ages would be in line with a marriage in Goes in 1540. These documents and the dating of his paintings between 1533 and 1545 make it likely that Marinus died in or shortly after 1546, but certainly before 1557.
Several of Van Reymerswale’s paintings are signed and dated, but many of the dates are disputed and only partly help establish a chronology. Van Reymerswale’s manner is easily distinguishable from that of his contemporaries, for he employed a draughtsman-like style in which the figures, above all, have harsh and sometimes caricature features.
Apart from his style, Van Reymerswale is known even more for his distinctive choice of subjects. They were limited in number, and included St Jerome in his Study (SK-A-3123). The various treatments of this subject can be traced back to inventions by Dürer. Van Reymerswale may have been the first artist to depict The Calling of St Matthew.5 Taxation and financial affairs are the subjects of The Banker and his Wife in Madrid,6 and of the Two Tax Gatherers in London.7
References
Guicciardini 1567, p. 212; Vasari 1568, III, p. 859; Van Mander 1604, fol. 261v; Steinbart in Thieme/Becker XXIV, 1930, pp. 109-11; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 69-76; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 454-72; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 40-43, 136; Mackor 1995, pp. 191-200; Van der Stock in Turner 1996, XXVI, pp. 269-70; Miedema IV, 1997, pp. 226-28
(L. Hendrikman/J.P. Filedt Kok)
Entry
The church father Jerome worked from 382 to 384 as the secretary to Pope Damasus I, for whom he revised the translations of the gospels and psalms into Latin. After Damasus’s death Jerome retired to Bethlehem, where he headed a monastic community. It was here that he revised the existing Latin translation of the Old Testament and wrote biblical commentaries. He also composed a number of polemical letters and writings.8
St Jerome held a great appeal for humanist scholars, who sometimes had themselves portrayed as this father of the church.9 Here he is shown with his cardinal’s hat hanging on the wall in reference to his position under Pope Damasus in Rome (although the office of cardinal did not yet exist), and with a skull, books and extinguished candle as symbols of the fleeting nature of life. On the lectern is an illuminated manuscript with a miniature of the Last Judgement on the left-hand page. The figures in the miniature follow Albrecht Dürer’s woodcut of the same subject in the Small Passion series (B. 51/M.160; RP-P-OB-1356). The scene of the Last Judgement is yet another allusion to the theme of transience, and was often associated with a penitent St Jerome in the late middle ages.10
St Jerome was one of the few subjects depicted by Van Reymerswale, and he did so in several versions with many repetitions. It is usually assumed that they are based on the St Jerome that Albrecht Dürer painted during his stay in Antwerp in 1521.11 The marked compositional similarities between Dürer’s St Jerome and Van Reymerswale composition in Berlin tend to bear this out.12 Unlike Dürer, who portrayed the saint as a melancholic, Van Reymerswale’s Jerome is pointing with his left index finger at the skull, underscoring the memento mori motif along with the extinguished candle and The Last Judgement.
The Rijksmuseum painting belongs to a cluster of 16 very similar to identical compositions, 11 of which Friedländer included in his catalogue.13 The St Jerome in his Study in Madrid, which is signed ‘Mdad me fecit’ (fig. a), is regarded as the most important version.14 It bears a date, but there is disagreement about its reading, which is interpreted as 1521, 1551 and 1541.15 A second version in the Prado is also signed (‘Marinus me fecit’) and dated either 1541 or 1547.16
The Rijksmuseum’s St Jerome in his Study is part of a subgroup of four or five works of roughly the same size (approx. 80 x 110 cm) which are distinguished from the others by the inclusion of the cardinals’ hat on the wall, the different rendering of the saint’s hood, and the absence of panelling on the rear wall and a door standing ajar. One version of this subgroup, signed ‘Marinus me fecit’ and dated 1541, is in Antwerp (fig. b), and two others are in Vienna17 and Montreal.18
The autograph nature and chronology of the different versions of St Jerome in his Study, including the one in the Rijksmuseum, are a matter of debate. The 1541 date on the Antwerp version is the only one that is generally accepted. Van Puyvelde regarded the Amsterdam panel as a good, autograph copy of the dated work in Antwerp.19 Marlier, too, rated these two the highest, alongside the Vienna version and the two in the Prado.20 The recently cleaning of the Rijksmuseum panel revealed Van Reymerswale’s distinctive precise and draughtsman-like style in the well-preserved areas, such as the painted manuscript and the papers and skull in the foreground. Here its qualities match those of the Antwerp version of 1541. Although it is perfectly possible that such repetitions were executed by a capable workshop assistant, nothing is known about any assistants, so the autograph nature of the Amsterdam painting cannot be ruled out. The dated versions of Van Reymerswale’s St Jeromes and the dendrochronology give a likely date of between 1535 and 1545.
(L. Hendrikman/J.P. Filedt Kok)
Literature
Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, p. 459 (as a good replica); Van Puyvelde 1960, p. 83 (as copy after Van Reymerswale); Marlier in Brussels 1963, pp. 163-64, no. 212 (as workshop of Van Reymerswale); Besse in Rotterdam 1969, no. 209; Demus in coll. cat. Vienna 1981, p. 276 (as workshop of Van Reymerswale); Bol and Van der Coelen in Rotterdam 2008b, pp. 91-96, 111, no. 24 (not exhibited)
Collection catalogues
1934, p. 246, no. 2042a; 1960, p. 266, no. 2042/B1; 1976, p. 478, no. A 3123 (as workshop of Van Reymerswale)
Citation
L. Hendrikman, 2010, 'attributed to Marinus van Reymerswale, St Jerome in his Study, c. 1535 - c. 1545', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5274
(accessed 8 October 2024 00:19:32).