The calling of St John during the marriage at Cana

Mechelen, Brussels, c. 1530 - c. 1532

Object data

oil on panel

support: height 66.5 cm × width 85 cm

Technical notes

The support consists of two horizontally grained oak planks (33 and 33.5 cm). The panel was planed down to a thickness of 0.2-0.3 cm for the addition of a cradle, which was removed in 1982. X-rays show three butt-joints between both planks. The reverse of the panel is now covered with two layers of linen coated in wax. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1501. The panel could have been ready for use by 1512, but a date in or after 1526 is more likely. The white ground, which is visible along the edges, extends to the top and bottom edge. On the left and right there are unpainted edges approx. 1.2 cm wide and the remains of a barbe, indicating that the panel must have been in a temporary working frame when the ground and paint were applied (painted surface: 66.5 x 82.5 cm). Infrared reflectography shows that the sketchy underdrawing consists of broad lines for the figures (and some hatching) in a dry medium, with some lines in a wet medium done with the brush (fig. c), (fig. d). There are many slight deviations from the underdrawing in the delineation of the reserves. The paint layer was applied rather thinly and broadly, with characteristic details like the feathery brushstrokes defining the contours. Black paint was used for the shadows, notably in the red draperies. Mordant gilding was used for the flames of both candles.

Scientific examination and reports

paint samples: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, 1982
X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1536/1-8, 1982
infrared reflectography: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, RKD, nos. AB 645:12-647:36, 17 June 1982
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 1986
dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 27 October 1995
infrared reflectography: M. Wolters, RKD/RMA, no. RKDG395, 9 May 2006
condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 12 May 2006
paint samples: A. Wallert / M. Leeflang [2], RMA, nos. 150/1-8, December 2006

Literature scientific examination and reports

Kloek in Amsterdam 1986, pp. 201-02; Wallert et al. 2009

Condition

Fair. The panel is rather fragile due to the removal of the cradle. It is slightly abraded, and there are paint losses along the join and in the background.

Conservation

conservator unknown, 1936: relined with wax
M. Zeldenrust, 1982: a later addition to the top of the painting removed; cradling removed; panel consolidated with impregnated linen

Provenance

…; ? inventory of paintings, Diego Duarte, Amsterdam, 12 July 1682 (‘Een groot stuck van de maeltijt van den vader des huysgesins uit het Evangelio van Joannue Magus, discipel van Raphel Urbin en schilder van Carolus V, fl. 200’;¹ …; the dealer, Annesley Gore, London, on behalf of an English nobleman, 1914;² ...; collection Mrs Hope-Webb (?-1952);³ her nephew, Nigal Logan, Chipping Campden, Cotswolds, until 1969;⁴ his sister, Lady St Vincent, Avranche Manor, Jersey;⁵ her sale, London (Sotheby’s), 9 December 1981, no. 103, £ 22,000, to the dealer Julius Weitzner Gallery, London;⁶ from whom, £ 25,000 (fl. 118,000) to the museum, 1982;⁷

Object number: SK-A-4820

The artist

Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen (Beverwijk c. 1503 - Brussels 1559)

According to his epitaph, Jan Vermeyen was born in Beverwijk, a village about 10 kilometres north of Haarlem. The will that he made on 24 September 1559 states that he was about 55 years old at the time (‘omtrent vive(n)vyftich jaere(n)’), so he must have been born around 1503.⁸ He was buried in the St Gorickkerk (Church of St Géry) in Brussels in 1559, which contained his epitaph and paintings by him (the church was demolished in 1799). Nothing is known about his first marriage, but it is assumed that his first wife died before he left for Spain in 1534. He probably married his second wife, Jida de Neve, in Brussels after his return to the Netherlands in 1540. Their son Hans Vermeyen (before 1559-1606) was a goldsmith who became a master in 1590 and was employed by Emperor Rudolf II.

Nothing is known about Vermeyen’s artistic training. The influence of both Jan Gossart and Jan van Scorel can be detected in his early works. Van Mander relates that Vermeyen and Jan van Scorel were friends and business partners. He was in the service of Margaret of Austria at the court in Mechelen between 1525 and her death in December 1530. In 1529 he received an annual stipend of 100 Flemish pounds. The works he painted for the regent were primarily portraits of her family and other relatives, and it was for this reason that he visited Augsburg in 1530. He did some work for Margaret’s successor, Mary of Hungary, the sister of Charles V, between 1530 and 1533, but he was probably not employed by her.

Vermeyen probably went to Spain in 1534 and stayed there until 1540. He accompanied Emperor Charles V on the military expedition to and conquest of Tunis in 1535, and in 1538 he is referred to as ‘painter to His Royal Majesty’. In 1536 and 1538 the council of Brabant granted him the exclusive rights to publish prints of those events. Between 1546 and 1550 he designed a set of twelve tapestries for Mary of Hungary depicting scenes from the Tunis expedition, of which ten cartoons still survive in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The tapestries were woven between 1551 and 1553 in Brussels by Willem Pannemaker. Payments for paintings in the Church of the Abbey of St Vaast in Arras are documented from 1548, and as late as 1561, two years after his death, to his widow. He owned land in the north of Holland jointly with Jan van Scorel, and in 1552 was involved in a project to dam the river Zype and polder the area.

None of the paintings by Vermeyen that Van Mander describes have survived. In 1872 Houdoy published a list of paintings, mostly portraits, which Vermeyen completed for Margaret of Austria in the period 1525-30 (the artist requested payment for the materials used in making them in 1533). The diptych of which two wings are described below could be reconstructed as a work by the artist on the basis of this list. The Holy Family, probably the right panel of that diptych, is the only signed painting from his hand (SK-C-1701; see the entry on SK-A-4069). The Micault Triptych with The Raising of Lazarus in Brussels (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 388, pls. 202-04), is securely attributed to Vermeyen and can be dated between 1547 and 1549. He made about 20 etchings, some of them dated 1545 and 1546, including various oriental subjects, which are signed with his ligated monogram ‘IC’. Apart from the cartoons and etchings, a group of portraits and a few remarkable night scenes (such as SK-A-4820) can be attributed to him.

References
Van Mander 1604, fols. 224v-25r; Houdoy 1872; Steinbart 1931; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 157-64; Boon in Thieme/Becker XXXIV, 1940, pp. 278-80; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 85-89; Horn 1989, I, pp. 5-40, II, pp. 339-411 (documents); Miedema III, 1996, pp. 132-40; Vermandere in Turner 1996, XXXII, pp. 271-72

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Entry

The subject of this candle-lit scene of a group of people sitting at table is very probably the calling of St John the Evangelist during the wedding feast at Cana. In the past it was thought to depict the meal in the house of Martha and Mary (Luke 10:38-42).⁹ Scenes of the marriage at Cana as described in John 2:1-11 generally focused on Christ’s miracle of turning barrels of water into wine, and those barrels are always an essential part of the composition.

This painting depicts a moment that preceded the miracle. According to a late-medieval tradition, the wedding feast at Cana celebrated the marriage of John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalen. Seated in the centre behind the table are the beardless John and his bride, with the apostles Peter and Andrew to the left of them, at the moment when the meal is being served. In the foreground the Virgin Mary turns to her right and grasps the shoulder of the servant who tells her that there is no wine. When she passes the news on to Christ he reacts dismissively. She then tells the servants to follow the instructions of her son, who tells them to fill the barrels with water, whereupon it turns into wine (John 2:3-10). At that moment John realises that there is a higher purpose to life and that he must follow Christ. He, ultimately followed by Mary Magdalen, opted for a spiritual rather than a physical marriage. The moment depicted in this painting follows the interpretation of Ludolf of Saxony and Pseudo-Bonaventure of the events that took place during the marriage at Cana.¹⁰ Although the bridal couple can be identified as John and Mary Magdalen in several scenes of the marriage at Cana from Giotto to Jheronimus Bosch, the barrels of water alluding to the miracle are always shown.¹¹

The way in which the Rijksmuseum scene is viewed from above with the figures closely packed around the circular table is highly original. The lighting of the faces and figures is capricious and imparts remarkable liveliness to the scene. As Bruyn so aptly put it: ‘Each head is an adventure of forms looming up out of the darkness, and if ever a painting was built up from darkness to light, then this is it. [...] The way in which glancing light and half-shadows alternate is typical of a pictorial sensitivity that appears to be without precedent’.¹² There is little doubt that Vermeyen was inspired by paintings like The Nativity by Aertgen van Leyden (SK-A-3903, fig. b). The mention of a candle-lit portrait by Vermeyen in the inventory of Margaret of Austria shows that he was already producing nocturnes by the second half of the 1520s. Another work that is as surprising and original as the present picture is the nocturnal Holy Family by a Fire in Vienna (fig. a), which is generally dated 1532-33, before Vermeyen’s departure for Spain and Tunis.¹³ Opinions differ about the date of the Rijksmuseum painting. Steinbart and Horn place it after Vermeyen’s return from Spain in 1540/41,¹⁴ while Bruyn and Kloek date it before his travels. In particular, the close stylistic and formal similarities to the artist’s etching, Mulay Hasan and his Retinue at a Repast (fig. b), which although not etched until c. 1545 was based on a drawing made in Tunis in 1534/35, are an argument for an early date of around 1530-32, as is the correspondence in technique with the Portrait of Erard de la Marck (see SK-A-4069) and The Holy Family by a Fire in Vienna (fig. a).¹⁵

The Rijksmuseum painting has a very sketch-like underdrawing, part of which was applied in a dry medium on the white ground and then reinforced with the brush. The bodies and faces were drawn with energetic contours and a sparing use of broad hatching (fig. c, fig. d). The underdrawing displays even greater freedom than those made by Jan van Scorel after his return from Italy, and its main purpose seems to have been to define the broad outlines of the scene.

In contrast to the diptych with the Portrait of Erard de la Marck and The Holy Family (SK-A-4069 and SK-C-1701), the underdrawing, over which there is no priming, was followed in the paint layer, which was generally applied in a single layer, with various shades of brown and lighter tints of white, yellow, bright red etc. in a thin and flowing manner. Highlights were then placed on top. The paint was handled with the same feathery brushstrokes as the diptych.¹⁶ Gold leaf was used for the flames of the two candles.¹⁷ Vermeyen also used gold leaf in other paintings, for the carnation in The Holy Family (SK-C-1701), for instance.

In 1931, Steinbart was the first to publish the painting in detail as a work by Jan Vermeyen. He did not know where it was at the time, but said that it had been on the Berlin art market in 1914 and had been offered to the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum.¹⁸ The first photographs of the painting must have been made at that time, after which it disappeared into an English private collection. The Rijksmuseum bought it when it surfaced in an English auction in 1981. It was then restored, and it turned out that a plank had later been added to the top, raising the height of the scene by 9 cm (fig. e). The removal of that plank in 1982 greatly enhanced the intensity of the scene. This was one of the most important purchases of an early Netherlandish painting in recent decades.¹⁹

(J.P. Filedt Kok)

Literature

Benesch 1929, p. 205 (as ‘Christ in the house of Lazarus’); Steinbart 1931, pp. 104-06, 108 (as ‘Christ visiting Mary and Martha’); Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 164 (as ‘Christ visiting Mary and Martha’); ENP XII, 1975, p. 88 (as ‘Christ visiting Mary and Martha’); Bruyn 1984, pp. 5-8; Kloek 1984, esp. p. 88 (as ‘Christ visiting Mary and Martha’); Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 201-02, no. 76; Horn 1989, I, pp. 11, 23-24, 33, 36, 88; Kloek in Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, pp. 149-50, no. 55; Kloek 2003

Download Bibliography (PDF)

Collection catalogues

1992, p. 89, no. A 4820

Citation

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2010, 'Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen, The calling of St John during the marriage at Cana, Mechelen, c. 1530 - c. 1532', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6422

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