Object data
oil on panel
support: height 26.6 cm × width 21.5 cm
thickness 1.5 cm
depth 3.9 cm
Lucas van Leyden (copy after)
Leiden, c. 1557 - c. 1600
oil on panel
support: height 26.6 cm × width 21.5 cm
thickness 1.5 cm
depth 3.9 cm
The support is a single vertically grained oak plank, 0.4-0.8 cm thick. There is a panel maker’s mark of an impressed star within a circle, similar to that on the pendant, SK-A-1483. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1548. The panel could have been ready for use by 1559, but a date in or after 1573 is more likely. The plank came from the same tree as that used for the pendant. The white ground and the paint layers were applied smoothly up to the edges of the support. The ground is a traditional chalk-glue ground with linseed oil. Infrared reflectography revealed an underdrawing for the figures in a dry medium, schematically indicating the contours and drapery folds. It could therefore be assumed that the main lines were traced with the help of a specially prepared transfer paper. The figures were reserved. The painted composition closely follows the contours of the underdrawing. Conventional pigments, such as vermilion, lead-tin yellow, lead white and azurite with an admixture of smalt were identified. The paint layers were carefully built up in thin layers; the face and hands were painted wet in wet. Mordant gilding was used for the halo.
Wallert/Bijl 2001
Fair. The painting is somewhat abraded and there is a discoloured retouching in the Virgin’s robe. The varnish is somewhat discoloured.
…; sale, F. Kaijser (†) (Frankfurt and Amsterdam) et al. [section F. Kaijser], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos), 4 December 1888 sqq., no. 25, as Albrecht Dürer, fl. 300, to Mr Santen,1 or fl. 275, to Mr Santen, for the widow of F. Kaijser;2 ...; purchased by the museum, fl. 316.50, 1889
Object number: SK-A-1484
Copyright: Public domain
Lucas van Leyden (Leiden c. 1494 - Leiden 1533), copy after
According to Van Mander, Lucas van Leyden was born in Leiden in May or June 1494 as the son of the painter Huygh Jacobsz. He is described as a child prodigy who took to art at an early age. He was already making engravings when he was 9 years old, and sold his first painting at the age of 12. Several specialists have cast doubt on the date 1494, preferring to place his birth around 1489. Lucas was one of the five children from the first marriage of Huygh Jacobsz (c. 1460-c. 1535) to Marie Hendriksdr, who died in 1494. Although Huygh Jacobsz is well documented in the archives, there is not a single work that can be attributed to him with any certainty. Van Mander reports that Lucas was first trained by his father, and then by Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. Together with the latter and his sons, Lucas is listed as a member of the crossbowmen’s guild between 1514 and 1519. He was still living with his father in Breestraat in 1515. In early June 1521 he met Albrecht Dürer in Antwerp, with whom he exchanged prints and who drew his portrait in silverpoint. He must have returned to Leiden soon afterwards, for at the end of June he stood surety for his brother Dirk, who was also a painter. His presence in the city is documented in 1525 and 1529 for the same reason. Shortly after 1526 he must have married Lysbeth van Bosschuysen, who belonged to one of the most powerful and richest families in Leiden. Van Mander’s anecdotal story about Lucas’s journey to Zeeland, Flanders and Brabant around 1527 seems implausible, given his high output at that time, as does reports of an illness caused partly due to his suspicion that he had been poisoned. He was buried in Leiden’s Pieterskerk in 1533.
The core of Lucas van Leyden’s oeuvre consists of almost 170 engravings and etchings, almost all of which have the monogram ‘L’, most of them bearing a date between 1508 and 1530. The artistic rivalry with the graphic work of Albrecht Dürer, which had already been remarked upon by Vasari, was central to his entire development. The reputation that Lucas enjoyed during his lifetime was due mainly to the international circulation of his prints. In addition to his work as an engraver he designed woodcuts, book illustrations and stained-glass roundels.
Some of the paintings described by Van Mander have survived, including his earliest dated panels of a Diptych with the Virgin and Child with a Donor and Mary Magdalen of 1521.3 The Triptych with the Last Judgement of c. 1526-27,4 and the Triptych with the Dance around the Golden Calf of c. 1530 (SK-A-3841) are also described by Van Mander, as is his last dated painting, The Healing of the Blind Man of Jericho of 1531.5 In addition to a tempera painting of Moses Striking Water from the Rock,6 which is signed and dated 1527, there are a dozen other pictures that can be attributed to the master. His early work, dating from around 1508, consists of small pieces with half-length figures in Old Testament scenes, as well as people playing chess and cards. Among his mature works are the altarpieces, as well as a few portraits and small devotional works.
Updated by J.P. Filedt Kok, 2017
References
Vasari 1568, III, p. 860; Van Mander 1604, fols. 211-15; Dülberg 1899b; Wescher in Thieme/Becker XXIII, 1929, pp. 168-70; Friedländer X, 1932, pp. 78-113, 134-38; Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 207-320; Rupprich I, 1956, pp. 174-75; ENP X, 1973, pp. 46-63, 81-84; Vos 1978b; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 1-31; Filedt Kok in Turner 1996, XIX, pp. 756-62; Kik in exh. cat. Leiden 2011, 198-99
See the entry on SK-A-1483.
See SK-A-1483.
See SK-A-1483.
M. Balm and J.P. Filedt Kok, 2001, 'copy after Lucas van Leyden, Inner Right Wing of a Diptych with the Virgin as Mater Dolorosa, c. 1557 - c. 1600', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.12115
(accessed 10 November 2024 11:18:55).