Object data
oil on panel
support: height 78.6 cm × width 67 cm × height 77.2 cm × width 67 cm
Jan van Scorel
Portrait of Reinoud III van Brederode (1493-1556), Lord of Vianen
Utrecht, c. 1545
Technical notes
The support consists of two vertically grained oak planks (31.8 and 35 cm), 0.5-1.5 cm thick. A strip approx. 1.4 cm wide was added at the top of the painting, making the original panel 77.2 x 67 cm. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1510. The panel could have been ready for use by 1521, but a date in or after 1535 is more likely. The planks are butt joined, and a butterfly cleat (2 x 3 cm) can be seen on the image side in the middle of Reinoud’s hat, but it is quite heavily retouched. Since only one batten remains on the upper reverse, it is possible that a small strip is missing along the bottom of the composition. The white-coloured ground was applied up to the edges. A slightly textured priming was probably applied on top of the ground, since broad brushstrokes of this layer are visible through the paint layers. Infrared reflectography detects assuredly underdrawn contours throughout the costume and even in details such as the ribbons and jewellery, as well as in the hands, face and beard, although the cape and hat remain opaque (fig. a). Infrared reflectography also shows that Scorel made a slight adjustment in the position of Reinoud’s ear. Some of the underdrawing in the face and hands can also be seen by the unaided eye. The figure has been delimited by the background colour. Although paint strokes can be noticed in the background, the paint has generally been applied smoothly, and the face was done wet in wet. The artist emphasised some details in the final paint stage, especially the jewellery, with highlights in white and what is probably lead-tin yellow.
Scientific examination and reports
- infrared reflectography: M. Faries, RKD, nos. MF 524:2-525:11, 15 May 1987
- condition report: B. Schoonhoven, RMA, 15 March 2006
- infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG375, 11 April 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 17 August 2006
Condition
Good. The varnish is thick and discoloured, and there are discoloured retouchings in places, especially along the join between the two planks.
Conservation
- H.H. Mertens, 1966
Provenance
? Commissioned by Reinoud III van Brederode (1493-1556), Lord of Vianen; ? his estate inventory, Huis Batenstein, near Vianen, 1556 (‘Les poinctures’ [...] ‘Monsiegnuer de Brederode//Madamme de Brederode’);1 ; ? estate inventory, Hendrik van Brederode (1531-68), Huis Batenstein, near Vianen, 1567 (‘In myn vrouwens stoeve // Twee taeffereelen van den ouden heer ende vrouwe van Brederode’);2 by descent to Johan Wolfert van Brederode-Cloetingen (1599-1655); ? his estate inventory, Huis Batenstein, near Vianen, 16 June 1646, the counts’ chamber (‘Een en twyntich schilderijs als: heer Reynouwt [...]’);3 ? by descent to the Van Brederode van Bolswart family, Amsterdam, late 18th century;4 with ‘de Heer van Brederode, Amsterdam’, as H. Holbein, late 18th century;5 …; ? collection Prof. J.A. Alberdingk Thijm (1820-89), 1883;6 ...; collection C.M.V. Roothaan, Nijmegen, 1889;7 from the dealer A. Croiset, The Hague, fl. 1,200, to the museum, October 1894; on loan to the Museum Beeckestijn, Velzen, 1992-2004
Object number: SK-A-1619
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan van Scorel (Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562)
Jan van Scorel was born in 1495, according to Karel van Mander, in the village of Schoorl northwest of Alkmaar, the natural son of a priest, Andries Ouckeyn, and Dieuwer Aertsdr. He died in Utrecht in 1562 and was buried in the Mariakerk, where a funerary monument was erected that contained a portrait of Scorel by his pupil, Antonio Moro. Van Mander praised Scorel for having visited Italy, returning with a new and more beautiful manner of painting; and the artist is still recognised today for the widespread influence that his Italianate style had in the northern Netherlands.
Jan van Scorel was not only a painter but also a canon. His church office in the Mariakerk, Utrecht, prohibited him from marrying, but his will (1537) tells us that he lived with Agatha van Schoonhoven as his common-law wife; the date 1529 on Scorel’s portrait of her must mark the period when the two met.8 One of the couple’s six children, Peter (c. 1530-1622) became a painter. Van Mander’s remark that Scorel ‘was very familiar with and liked by all the great lords of the Netherlands,’ is almost an understatement. The artist built up an influential network among the clergy, beginning with Pope Adrian VI, the artist’s protector when he arrived in Rome around 1522, and including Herman van Lokhorst, dean of Oudmunster (St Saviour), Scorel’s first, important patron in Utrecht, and other fellow ecclesiastics. In addition, Scorel had high court connections. In the negotiations surrounding his canonry, Scorel’s sponsors were none other than the stadholders Henry III of Nassau-Breda and Floris of Egmond, the most powerful nobles at the Court of Holland at the time. In c. 1532-33, Scorel visited the courts at Breda and Mechelen, where he met the neo-Latin poet, Janus Secundus, and was at the court in Brussels around 1552. Scorel also worked for the municipality of Utrecht and received payments from the city for his activities associated with the triumphal entries into Utrecht of Charles V (1540) and Philip II (1549).
Early sources suggest Scorel began his training as an apprentice in Alkmaar or Haarlem, but neither suggestions have been substantiated. Van Mander’s account is more credible when it comes to the second step in Scorel’s training: after attending the Latin School in Alkmaar, Scorel moved to Amsterdam around 1512, where he became an assistant in Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen’s workshop. Van Mander also reports that Scorel studied briefly with Jan Gossart, who came to Utrecht after his protector, Philip of Burgundy, had been elected bishop in 1517. By 1518-19 Scorel left the Netherlands on a long journey whose route was described in detail by Karel van Mander, eventually taking the painter to Venice, the Holy Land and Rome.
Scorel’s stays in both Venice and Rome can be construed as a continuation of his training, for he was profoundly influenced by his new surroundings. After returning to Venice from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1520, Scorel painted a number of portraits and landscapes, and he may have ventured on to Rome after the Utrecht native, Adriaan Florisz Boeyens, was elected pope in January 1522. According to Van Mander, Scorel not only had access to antique statuary as overseer of the Vatican collections in the Belvedere, an appointment he received from Pope Adrian VI, he was also able to make drawings after Raphael, Michelangelo and the works of other Italian masters. Adrian VI’s promise to Scorel of a canonry in Utrecht led the artist to settle there in 1524 after his return from Rome.
Van Mander’s life of Jan van Scorel is the primary source for the reconstruction of the painter’s oeuvre. He knew, for instance, that during his early travels, the painter worked for nobility in Carinthia (Austria), where Scorel’s first signed and dated painting, the 1519 Holy Kinship altarpiece, can still be seen today.9 The major touchstone of Scorel’s first years in Utrecht, the Triptych with the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem painted as a memorial for members of the Lokhorst family around 1526,10 is described at length by Van Mander. When Jan van Scorel moved to Haarlem (1527-30), Van Mander tells us that he was received by Simon van Sanen, Commander of the Knights of St John. Both Van Mander’s account and the inventories of the order mention a number of key works that Scorel completed during this period: The Baptism of Christ, Adam and Eve11 and Mary Magdalen (SK-A-372). Scorel’s Haarlem period was an extremely critical and productive one: he established his basic repertoire of subjects, received more prestigious commissions, such as the Crucifixion Altarpiece for the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (now lost), rented a house and took on students, among them Maarten van Heemskerck, and expanded and standardised the operations of his workshop.
Scorel’s ‘most flourishing period’, according to Karel van Mander, followed upon the artist’s return to Utrecht by September 1530. Unfortunately, many of the works Van Mander describes from this period have been lost. The Finding of the True Cross triptych, probably commissioned by Henry III of Nassau-Breda in the mid-1530s, has survived, although in poor condition.12 Some remarkable discoveries were made in the late 20th century of altarpieces executed by Scorel and his shop around 1540 for the abbey of Marchiennes in what is now northern France. Fragments survive from an Altarpiece with St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, and the Polyptych with Sts James the Greater and Stephen lacks only one wing.13 These works, along with the Landscape with Bathsheba of c. 1540-45 (SK-A-670), provide us with a better understanding of Scorel’s late style. His oeuvre consists of some 60 extant paintings, between 20 and 25 drawings, and 6 designs for prints.
In addition to Maarten van Heemskerck, Antonio Moro and Scorel’s son Peter were apprentices in Scorel’s shop. Others, such as Lambert Sustris, may have had brief contact with his workshop as assistants. Van Mander describes Scorel as the typical uomo universale of his time. He was skilled in languages, wrote poetry as well as songs, acted as an amateur archaeologist and marine engineer, and participated in an ambitious land development scheme, the reclamation of the Zijpe in north Holland.
References
Lampsonius 1572 (1956), no. 17; Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), pp. 21, 26-30, 52, 63-64; Van Mander 1604, fols. 234r-36v; Muller 1880; Justi 1881, pp. 193-210; Scheibler/Bode 1881, pp. 211-14; Hoogewerff 1923a; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 118-56; Hoogewerff in Thieme/Becker XXX, 1936, pp. 401-04; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 23-191; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 65-81; Faries 1970, pp. 2-24 (documents); Faries 1972; Faries in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 179-80; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 268-90; Faries in Turner 1996, XXVIII, pp. 215-29; Faries 1997, pp. 107-16; Van Thiel-Stroman in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 303-04; Faries in coll. cat. Utrecht 2011, pp. 167-69
M. Faries, 2010
Updated by the author, 2016
Entry
Standing before a neutral grey background and portrayed half-length, Reinoud III van Brederode assumes a commanding pose with his left arm akimbo. His proper right hand most likely holds the hilt of a dagger, since a sword hilt - slightly cut off by the panel’s lower edge - can be seen just below his left hand. Although the sitter seems to be portrayed past middle age, Reinoud’s beard has not yet turned completely white.14 He is depicted here as a knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, having been inducted into the order at the 1531 chapter meeting in Tournai. Hoogewerff states that he is portrayed as dean of the order,15 but Reinoud held this office only for a few months at the very end of his life in 1556.16 He wears a double golden chain from which the insignia of the order are suspended: a fire-steel (the Burgundian briquet), a flint issuing flames, and the golden fleece pendant. Order paraphernalia belonging to Reinoud, the insignia and red, black and white robes, are listed in his 1556 estate inventory.17 The chain was added in paint only and was painted in over the ribbons on Reinoud’s doublet. The doublet, although appearing to be black, must be a dark blue, since the colour could be penetrated by infrared reflectography. The doublet is ornamented with crossed white ribbons to which six pins with alternating floral motifs have been attached. Similar badge-like pins, with clusters of pearls and flame motifs, decorate Reinoud’s black baret, which is of a type that dates to the mid-1540s.18 De Meyere notes that something of Reinoud’s taste can be sensed in this portrait, since the 1556 inventory of his estate listed expensive clothing along with many pearls and precious jewels.19 Reinoud’s cape, draped elegantly over his shoulders, is pure black and has a slight nubby texture. As a Brederode, Reinoud III was a member of the leading family of Holland nobles, and he served in important advisory and military capacities for Charles V.20
This portrait has been attributed more often to Cornelis Anthonisz, because this artist is known to have included a portrait of Reinoud III in a woodcut series of his own design, the Lords of Brederode, c. 1550-51, which he also dedicated to Reinoud III.21 Furthermore, there are two equestrian portraits of Reinoud attributed to Cornelis Anthonisz, one a woodcut (RP-P-BI-126).22 and the other a painting in the Vianen Town Hall.23 None of these portraits, however, have any direct similarities to the Rijksmuseum painting. Both Reinoud III and Jan van Scorel moved in the same court circles (see the biography), and there were any number of occasions when the two could have met. From 1535 to 1545 Scorel owned portions of a house along with Wolfert of Brederode, Lord of Cloetinge (d. 1548), who was Reinoud’s brother.24 During negotiations preceding the impoldering of the Zijpe by Scorel and his partners in 1552, the painter came to an agreement with Reinoud III about the position of one of the proposed dikes.25 In 1546, Scorel is known to have hosted one of the guests at the meeting of the Order of the Golden Fleece in Utrecht,26 an event that may have occasioned the Rijksmuseum portrait. Although the estimates are slightly earlier, dendrochronology does not contradict a date in the mid-1540s.
Ultimately, the question of attribution must be decided on the basis of style. The strong silhouette, together with the patterns established by the placement of the hands and decorative features of the costume, stress the two-dimensional aspects of the composition. The planar conception of Scorel’s works is a characteristic that has long been recognised, having been expounded for the first time by Wescher in 1938 when differentiating Scorel’s compositions from Heemskerck’s.27 In this work, Scorel’s presentation is highly schematic, and this tendency can be seen in other official portraits, such as those of the ecclesiastics Joris van Egmond (see SK-C-1618), and Jean II van Carondelet in Brussels.28 Scorel sets heads and shoulders off sharply against the background in another work that is close in date, Five Members of the Utrecht Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims of circa 1541.29 This painting also relies on a restricted palette and includes half-length figures with elegant hand gestures along the lower edge. The geometric faceting in Reinoud’s face and the contrast of impasto highlights with thin glazes for shade is typical of Scorel’s portrait method, although in this case occasional retouching obscures some of these details.30 It is the underdrawing, however, that secures the attribution (fig. a). For portraiture, Scorel lays out facial features with assuredly drawn contours, such as the circles revealed around Reinoud’s eyes and the long, curvilinear lines in the nose. Scorel uses this type of underdrawing in his portraits almost without exception.
M. Faries, 2010
Revised by the author, 2016 (download previous version below)
Literature
Beets 1939, pp. 200-01 (as Cornelis Anthonisz); Hoogewerff III, 1939, p. 493 (as Cornelis Teunisz); Schenk zu Schweinberg 1960, pp. 93-94 (as Antonio Moro); De Meyere 1981b, pp. 14-15 (as possibly by Cornelis Anthonisz); Armstrong 1990, p. 138, note 7 (as a plausible attribution to Cornelis Anthonisz); Faries 2002, p. 42 (as Jan van Scorel)
Collection catalogues
1903, p. 246, no. 2192; 1934, p. 263, no. 2192 (as manner of Scorel); 1960, p. 283, no. 2192; 1976, p. 85, no. A 1619 (as attributed to Cornelis Anthonisz)
Citation
M. Faries, 2010, 'Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Reinoud III van Brederode (1493-1556), Lord of Vianen, Utrecht, c. 1545', in J.P. Filedt Kok and M. Ubl (eds.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5796
(accessed 22 November 2024 22:50:45).Figures
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