Object data
oil on panel
support: height 46.4 cm × width 15.8 cm
height 45.7 (painted surface) × width 14.7 (painted surface)
Maarten van Heemskerck
c. 1550 - c. 1560
oil on panel
support: height 46.4 cm × width 15.8 cm
height 45.7 (painted surface) × width 14.7 (painted surface)
Signed, top, on the column: Martinus Heemskerck fecit
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.7 cm thick, and is slightly bevelled on the left side, top and bottom. Dendrochronology has shown that it came from the same tree as Samson Carrying the Gate of Gaza (fig. h), the youngest heartwood ring of which was formed in 1514. The panel could have been ready for use by 1525, but a date in or after 1539 is more likely. There is an off-white ground, with unpainted edges of approx. 0.4 cm (painted surface: 45.7 x 14.7 cm), and a streaky priming. No traces of an underdrawing are visible with infrared reflectography. The paint was applied in a sketchy manner in brown and white, with strong highlights.
Good. There are some small losses, and the varnish is slightly discoloured.
…; collection Kenneth Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 12th Lord (1880-1972), Rossie Priory, Inchture, Perthshire, Scotland, 1929;1 or Graham Charles Kinnaird, 13th Lord (1912-1997), Rossie Priory, Inchture, Perthshire, Scotland, 1929;2 his sale et al., London (Christie’s), 21 June 1946, no. 36, as a series of the twelve works of Hercules divided into four sets, 94.10 gns, to the dealer Kauffman, London;3 …; the dealer P. Cassirer, London, 1947;4 from whom, £ 340, with three other paintings, to the museum, 1948
Object number: SK-A-3511
Copyright: Public domain
Maarten van Heemskerck (Heemskerk 1498 - Haarlem 1574)
Maarten van Heemskerck was born in 1498 in the small village of Heemskerk, a few miles north of Haarlem, as the son of the farmer Jacob Willemsz van Veen. Sometime between 1527 and 1530 he worked in Haarlem as an assistant in the workshop of Jan van Scorel, who had returned from Italy in 1524. In 1532, Heemskerck joined the Haarlem Guild of St Luke. Soon after 23 May 1532, he left Haarlem for Rome, arriving there before mid-July. At the end of 1536, or possibly the beginning of 1537, he returned to Haarlem, where he spent the rest of his life with the exception of a short stay in Amsterdam during the siege of Haarlem of 1572-73. Heemskerck was a wealthy man and was acquainted with many influential people in Haarlem, such as the magistrate and burgomaster Jan van Zuren, and the Van Berensteyn family. In Delft he had good connections with the humanist prior Cornelis Musius, whom he befriended soon after his return from Rome. Heemskerck’s first wife, Marie Jacobs Coningsdr, whom he probably married at the end of 1543, died in childbirth on 25 October 1544. Around 1550 he married his second wife, Marytgen Gerritsdr (?-1582), the daughter of former burgomaster Gerrit Adamz. She was a fairly wealthy woman and they lived in a large house on Donkere Spaarne in Haarlem between 1559 and 1567. Heemskerck remained childless. From 1551 to 1552 he was the warden of the Guild of St Luke in Haarlem, and was its dean in 1553-54. In 1553 he became a churchwarden of St Bavo’s in Haarlem, which he remained until his death. Heemskerck was a member of the city council from early 1562 until 22 August 1572. In 1570 he was relieved of paying municipal tax in recognition of his graphic work. He died on 1 October 1574 at the age of 76 and was buried in the Nieuwe- or Kerstkapel on the north side of St Bavo’s.
Not much is known about Heemskerck’s training before 1527. Van Mander tells us that his first teacher was Cornelis Willemsz of Haarlem. According to archival documents, Willemsz was a relatively successful painter, and was Jan van Scorel’s master as well. All we know of the second teacher Van Mander mentions, Jan Lukasz of Delft, is that he was the dean of the Delft Guild of St Luke in 1541.
An extremely productive artist, Heemskerck’s extant oeuvre consists of more than 100 paintings, two albums with Roman drawings and sketches, and around 600 print designs. No works are known from his time with Willemsz and Lukasz. Close similarities between Scorel and Heemskerck’s early work stand in the way of determining the latter’s earliest oeuvre. His Rijksmuseum Portrait of a man, possibly Pieter Gerritsz Bicker and Portrait of a Woman, possibly Anna Codde of 1529 (SK-A-3518 and SK-A-3519) are generally considered to be his earliest extant paintings. Heemskerck started to sign and date his paintings from 1531 onwards. His monumental 1532 St Luke painting the Virgin in the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem was painted as a farewell gift to his fellow guild members upon his departure for Rome.5 Apart from the two Roman sketchbooks, four paintings survive from his period there, of which the 1535 Landscape with the Abduction of Helen in the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore is the most monumental.6
Heemskerck was particularly active as a painter during the 1540s. Major commissions included the large 1538-42 St Lawrence Altarpiece for the Laurenskerk in Alkmaar, now in the Domkyrka in Linköping, Sweden,7 and the 1546 wings of the Drapers’ Altarpiece for the St Bavokerk in Haarlem, now in the Frans Hals Museum.8 Throughout his career he painted works for various religious institutions in Delft, of which the monumental 1559-60 Haarlem Ecce homo9 and the Brussels Entombment triptychs are important examples.10 At the same time Heemskerck executed many portraits of distinguished citizens, and painted numerous allegorical, biblical and mythological scenes. In 1548 he started his grand production of print designs that were brought into prints by professional engravers like Philips Galle, Cornelis Cort and D.V. Coornhert. From 1552 onwards Heemskerck became associated with the influential Antwerp printmaker and publisher Hieronymus Cock. His last paintings are dated 1567. He still remained active as a print designer after that date.
Little is known about Heemskerck’s workshop. The earliest reference to a pupil is a payment record of 1538 in which a 'servant of Master Maerten’ is mentioned in connection with the St Lawrence Altarpiece. Van Mander names three pupils: Jacob Rauwaert, who became an art dealer and collector and housed Heemskerck during the siege of Haarlem in 1572, Cornelis van Gouda, and Symon Jansz Kies of Amsterdam.
References
Van Mander 1604, fols. 244v-47r; Van der Willigen 1866, pp. 126-31; Preibisz 1911, pp. 3-55; Hoogewerff in Thieme/Becker XVI, 1923, pp. 227-29; Friedländer XIII, 1936, pp. 71-83; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 290-386; ENP XIII, 1975, pp. 40-45; Veldman 1977, pp. 11-18; Grosshans 1980, pp. 18-27; Veldman in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 190; Harrison 1987, pp. 2-99; Miedema I, 1994, pp. 236-49; Veldman in Turner 1996, XIV, pp. 291-94; Van Thiel-Stroman in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 197-201
(Ilona van Tuinen)
This painting and three others in the collection of the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-3512, SK-A-3513 and SK-A-3514) belong to a set of twelve small grisaille panels, four of which are currently in the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, with a further two in the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, and two more which used to be in the Wetzlar Collection in Amsterdam.11 The complete set consists of three categories: four panels depict ancient Greek gods: Saturn (fig. a), Pluto (fig. b), Neptune (SK-A-3514) and Jupiter (fig. c). Four panels show episodes from the life of Hercules: Hercules Slaying the Hydra (fig. d), Hercules and Antaeus (fig. e), Hercules Destroying the Centaur Nessus (SK-A-3513) and Hercules Carrying the Column of Heaven (fig. f). The remaining four depict scenes from the life of Samson: Samson Rending the Lion (SK-A-3512), Samson Conquering the Philistines (fig. g), Samson Carrying the Gate of Gaza (fig. h) and Samson Destroying the Temple (SK-A-3511).
Until the twelve panels were auctioned at Christie’s in London in 1946 as the Twelve Labours of Hercules by Martin van Heemskerck, the complete series was in the collection of Lord Kinnaird at Rossie Priory in Scotland. In 2007, the two paintings formerly in the Wetzlar collection were thoroughly examined with the four from the Rijksmuseum.12 In 2008, photographs of the fronts and backs of the two panels in Oberlin were kindly provided by the Allen Memorial Art Museum.13 In 2008, regular, ultraviolet and X-ray photographs of the fronts and backs of the four panels in New Haven were kindly provided by the Yale University Art Gallery.14 Dendrochronological data were collected for all twelve panels.15
Samson Destroying the Temple (SK-A-3511) depicts Samson’s last deed when, blinded and held prisoner by the Philistines, he used his last powers to destroy the Temple, killing the Philistines and himself (Judges 16:28-31). According to the story, Samson stood between two pillars and pushed them apart, something Heemskerck adhered to in his design for an engraving executed by Philips Galle.16 Probably due to the vertical format of the Rijksmuseum panel, Heemskerck depicted Samson with both hands around one pillar and included one desperate face on the left, so as to leave no doubt about the subject matter. Samson Rending the Lion (SK-A-3512) depicts Samson’s first deed (Judges 14:5-7): the young Samson encountered an aggressive lion on his way to his Philistine bride and tore the beast apart with his bare hands. Heemskerck indeed painted Samson as a young man: of the four panels devoted to him, this is the only one in which he is beardless. In the background Heemskerck, following the tale, included Samson’s oblivious parents. In Hercules Destroying the Centaur Nessus (SK-A-3513) Heemskerck depicted Hercules killing Nessus with his club. Whereas the story relates that the hero shot his poisoned arrow from the shore, many examples exist in the pictorial tradition of Hercules attacking the beast with his club. Heemskerck probably opted to show Hercules clubbing the centaur because this would better suit the vertical format of the panel. In Neptune with a Seahorse (SK-A-3514) he painted the ancient Greek god of the sea standing over a seahorse. In his right hand Neptune is holding a trident, his traditional attribute.
The format, number and monumental treatment of the subject matter of the twelve panels are reminiscent of ancient Hercules sarcophagi, especially the famous sarcophagus from the 3rd century AD with the twelve labours of Hercules in the Palazzo Torlonia.17 The Torlonia sarcophagus, which stood in the house of Cardinal Savelli in Rome in the 16th century, is known to have been sketched by many artists, and was probably seen by Heemskerck as well.18 The monochrome grisaille technique Heemskerck used was without doubt meant to create the illusion of three-dimensional statues. Interestingly, of the four Hercules panels in Heemskerck’s series, only one, Hercules Slaying the Hydra (fig. d) depicts one of the twelve labours. For some of the subject matter then, as Harrison pointed out, Heemskerck might have studied contemporary Italian prints, especially the 1526 engravings of Deities in Niches by Jacobo Caraglio after Rosso Fiorentino.19 Indeed, as regards Heemskerck’s choice of attributes, Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto generally bear similarities to this series.20 More specifically, the composition of Rosso’s Saturn, and the way in which his Jupiter is riding on his eagle, are particularly close to Heemskerck’s corresponding gods.
This series is a rare example in the visual arts of a combination of ancient Greek gods and episodes from the lives of Hercules and Samson. During the 16th century, artists are known to have linked the ancient gods with Hercules, as well as Hercules with Samson, but not all three.21 As for the subject matter, Heemskerck interestingly did not opt for the obvious similarities between Hercules and Samson, namely their heroic victory over a savage lion and their fall due to a woman’s interference. This together with the inclusion of the four gods suggests that Heemskerck was working on a very specific iconographic scheme. It would seem that by choosing these particular episodes he was not only portraying the legendary strength of his mortal characters but also the inevitability of their deaths. Indeed, it was the Hydra’s poison, through Nessus’s subterfuge, that caused Hercules’s death. And it was the riddle connected to the lion’s corpse that prompted Samson’s first attack on the Philistines, who would eventually defeat him. At the same time Heemskerck seems to have been touching upon a theme regarding the awarding and suspension of kingship, which runs through the lives of all the characters in the series. After all, Saturn’s kingship was wrested from him by his son Zeus, who therefore prevented his brothers Neptune and Pluto from ever having it. Hercules lost his right to kingship to Eurystheus, and Samson missed out on his by having been born in the time of Judges instead of Kings. It still remains unclear, however, exactly how these panels relate to each other.
Until now, two attempts have been made to reconstruct the original order of the twelve panels, though in both cases any larger narrative connecting all the depicted gods and heroes was disregarded. In a 1950 letter to Chester Trip, Erwin Panofsky tentatively suggested a possible scheme based on the four elements fire (Pluto), water (Neptune), air (Jupiter) and earth (Saturn). Basing himself on certain obvious similarities between the actions of Samson and Hercules, he created four groups, each with a god, a Hercules and a Samson.22 In 1980, Grosshans rearranged the twelve paintings slightly, keeping the same god-Hercules couples as Panofsky but changing the order of the Samsons on the basis of some narrative and visual resemblances between the depictions of the Samsons and the Hercules.23
Considering that the series contains three categories and that the sizes of the paintings allow for three panels to form exactly one square, it does indeed seem likely that the paintings were originally arranged in four groups of three. As for the order of the paintings within those groups, the photographs that were taken for the 1946 auction seem to be significant. The paintings were sold as four sets of three and were photographed as such (fig. i), (fig. j), (fig. k), (fig. l)). Each set contained a god, a Hercules and a Samson, in a different order from that suggested by both Panofsky and Grosshans. The individual panels are not framed in the photographs, and the three panels in each set seem to be held together by a thin ledge. That this is not the original framing is indicated by the unpainted edges visible in the photographs of the twelve paintings. However, considering their careful grouping (one of each category) at a time when the paintings were known as the Twelve Works of Hercules, and bearing in mind that the panels were offered for sale in this manner, it seems likely that the panels were in, and possibly entered, the Kinnaird Collection in these four groups. This is also suggested by the results of technical research. Traces of bone glue were found on the backs of the six panels examined in 2007, and the wood is discoloured along some of the edges. This is also the case with the other six paintings, as can be seen in the photographs of the American panels. When the backs of the panels are grouped in the order of the four sets in the 1946 photographs, the glue traces and the discolouration of the wood create a distinct pattern, most likely the traces of an earlier framing. It is not known from which time the glue traces originate and thus at which point the panels were grouped together in this way, but it is possible that Heemskerck himself intended these groupings. That, however, still does not provide us with any information about the order in which the four groups were meant to be placed.24 It is also important to note the possibility that the twelve works could have been part of some sort of larger iconographic scheme.
It is not clear what the original function of these panels was, but various suggestions have been put forward: a predella or the reverse of a large painting,25 the panelling of a scholar’s study or library,26 or the decoration of a cabinet or some other piece of furniture.27 This last option seems plausible. As Harrison recalled in this context, Heemskerck painted a ‘Sol’ and a ‘Luna’ on a bed early in his career,28 and it is possible that he received more commissions to adorn furniture later on. Also, if we remember the panels’ resemblance to ancient sarcophagi reliefs, it seems possible that they were painted to decorate a square or rectangular chest or cabinet.29 In any case, considering the subject matter, it certainly seems likely that Heemskerck painted the series for a humanist patron.30
The panels have traditionally been dated 1540-45. As Harrison already noted, the dynamic poses are indeed stylistically similar to Heemskerck’s work of that time, especially his 1538-42 St Lawrence Altarpiece, now in Linköping, Sweden.31 Dendrochronological analysis of all twelve paintings has, however, revealed that the planks came from four different trees,32 the youngest of which could have been ready for use at the very earliest in 1547.33 This would suggest that Heemskerck painted the series slightly later, possibly in the early 1550s.
(Ilona van Tuinen)
Verslagen 1948, pp. 8-9; Friedländer 1952, p. 14, no. 14; Recklinghausen 1964, no. 278 (SK-A-3511 and SK-A-3512); Stechow in coll. cat. Oberlin 1967, pp. 72-73; Grosshans 1980, pp. 148-51, no. 30, with earlier literature; Harrison 1987, pp. 501-11, no. 46, with earlier literature; Veldman 1993, pp. 129-30
1948, pp. 45-46, nos. 1128 A3-A6; 1960, p. 126, nos. 1128 A3-A6; 1976, p. 264, nos. A 3511-A 3514
I. van Tuinen, 2010, 'Maarten van Heemskerck, Samson Destroying the Temple, c. 1550 - c. 1560', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8643
(accessed 10 November 2024 05:06:35).