Object data
oil on panel
support: height 58 cm × width 38.7 cm
painted surface: height 56.7 cm × width 37.5 cm
Joos van Cleve (copy after)
Portrait of Joris Vezeleer (1493-1570)
after c. 1518
Technical notes
The support has an arched top and consists of two vertically grained oak planks (27.6 and 10.9 cm). It has been thinned down to 0.3 cm and transferred to a new panel, which is cradled. The original panel was later let into a wooden tray, which suggests that there is an unpainted edge. This has made dendrochronological examination impossible. The original panel is probably trimmed on all sides. There are no remains of an unpainted edge or barbe. The whitish ground was applied up to the edges, and is thin, since the grain of the wood is visible through the ground and paint layers. Based on visual analysis and examination with infrared reflectography it seems that an ‘imprimatura’, possibly greyish, was applied. Broad brushstrokes are visible beneath the face. The portrait was reserved in the background. The sitter’s hair and bonnet were underpainted in a brownish tone. The fur and individual hairs were painted with a fine brush. The highlights in the face were executed with thin hatchings in white paint. The paint layers are thin and smooth. The lower left part of the bonnet was reduced in size in the final painting stage.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: RMA, no. 26, 2 February 1948
- infrared reflectography: M. Leeflang, RMA, 17 January 2003
- condition report: G. Tauber / A. Smeets [2], RMA, 25 September 2006
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 14 November 2006
Condition
Fair. In the middle of both planks there is a crack of 11 and 13 cm respectively. The paint layers are abraded, especially in the face and neck.
Provenance
…; the dealer J. Goudstikker (1897-1940), Amsterdam, 1922;1…; collection Dominicus Antonius Josephus Kessler (1855-1939) and Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann (1868-1947), Kapelle op den Bosch, near Mechelen, 1925;2 donated, with xx other objects, by Mrs A.C.M.H. Kessler-Hülsmann to the museum, 1940
Object number: SK-A-3292
Credit line: Gift of Mr and Mrs Kessler-Hülsmann, Kapelle op den Bosch
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Joos van Cleve (? Cleves c. 1485/90 - Antwerp 1540/41), copy after
On the evidence of the painted self-portraits and the archival documents regarding Joos van Cleve’s career it can be assumed that he was probably born between 1485 and 1490. His name suggests that he or his family came from the city or region of Cleves in the north-west of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, near the current Dutch border and the river Rhine. He worked on the painted wings of the altarpiece in the Sankt Nikolaikirche in Kalkar from 1506 to 1509 under the supervision of Jan Joest. It is not known whether Van Cleve was Joest’s apprentice, or whether he was a journeyman. Nevertheless, his prominent self-portrait in The Raising of Lazarus in Kalkar would appear to demonstrate Joest’s recognition of his abilities as a painter.
Joos van Cleve was registered as a free master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke in 1511, of which he was one of the deans in 1519, 1520 and 1525. In 1519 he married Anna Vijdt, who died in 1529, and he remarried shortly afterwards, his second wife being Katlijne van Mispelteren. Guicciardini states in his 1567 description of the Low Countries that Joos van Cleve painted many portraits of nobles at the court of King Francis I. This, combined with the fact that Van Cleve is not mentioned in Antwerp archival documents between 1529 and 1535, has led to the widespread belief that he was working at the French court at the time. A French document of 17 February 1533, however, records that Joos van Cleve gave the art dealer Joris Vezeleer (for his portrait see SK-A-3292) permission to receive a payment from Francis I for the delivery of three paintings. It could therefore be assumed that he stayed in Antwerp and that Vezeleer was his intermediary with the King of France. It is not known whether this procedure was in operation throughout that entire period, or whether Van Cleve was in France himself in the years 1529-32 and/or 1534-35.
In 1538, Joos van Cleve and Adriaen Tack are recorded as deans of the Poor Box, the guild’s fund for the aid of the poor and sick. On his sickbed on 10 November 1540, Joos van Cleve drew up a notarised document which was witnessed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Maarten Thysman, a glass-maker. Since Van Cleve’s wife, Katlijne van Mispelteren, was registered as a widow on 4 February 1541, it can be concluded that the artist must have died between those two dates. His son, Cornelis, took over the running of his father’s workshop.
It required most of the 19th century to identify Joos van Cleve as the author of a group of paintings assembled around the Cologne Death of the Virgin and the painting of the same subject in Munich.3 On the basis of stylistic similarities the painter of these works was referred to as The Master of the Death of the Virgin. Based on the documents relating to Joos van Cleve’s life that were published by Van den Branden in 1883, Firmenich-Richartz connected the ‘IvaB’ monogram on the wings of the Reinhold Altarpiece in Warsaw,4 and the Death of the Virgin triptych in Cologne to Joos van Cleve, thereby giving a name to the artistic personality known as the Master of the Death of the Virgin.
At least five pupils are known to have been trained by Joos van Cleve. He and his workshop assistants were responsible for altarpieces commissioned by Italian, Netherlandish and German clients among others, devotional works produced in series for the open market, and many portraits. Besides the works in Warsaw and Cologne, five other paintings bear a monogram or contain a self-portrait of the painter.5 These works form the core of an oeuvre that nowadays comprises over 300 paintings, which are very divergent in both style and quality. At the beginning of his career one can detect the influences of Bruges painters and of his presumed master, Jan Joest. However, the work of Albrecht Dürer and of Italian artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bernardino Luini soon began to play an important role. Although these various influences are visibly integrated in the artist’s works, Joos van Cleve did create a distinctive and recognisable oeuvre.
References
Guicciardini 1567, p. 98; Van Mander 1604, fols. 226r-27r; Van den Branden 1883, pp. 128-29; Firmenich-Richartz 1894; Cohen in Thieme/Becker VIII, 1912, pp. 98-99; Baldass 1925; Friedländer IX, 1931, pp. 20-73; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 17-47; Scailliérez 1991, pp. 7-14; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 158-65; Hand in Turner 1996, VIII, pp. 423-26; Ekkart in Saur XIX, 1998, pp. 550-52; Hand 2004, pp. 5-7; Leeflang 2007a, pp. 21-38
(Micha Leeflang)
Entry
This is a faithful copy after Van Cleve’s Portrait of Joris Vezeleer in Washington.6 Vezeleer (1493-1570) was a leading Antwerp goldsmith who became a famous art dealer and wealthy entrepreneur.7 The Washington panel has a companion piece in the shape of the portrait of Margaretha Boghe, Vezeleer’s wife. The identification of the sitters is based on an exchange of letters between the art dealer Matthijs Musson and the Dutch statesman and poet Constantijn Huygens, a great-grandson of Joris Vezeleer and Margaretha Boghe.8 On 23 December 1652, Huygens wrote to Musson about the portraits of his great-grandparents that the dealer had sent him. Huygens mentioned that the man was pulling on a glove and that the original portraits were in Vienna at the time. A letter of January 1653 states that the copies in Huygens’s possession were made by an Antwerp painter called De Vos.
The original pair of portraits by Van Cleve were indeed in Vienna until the 20th century, when they were acquired by the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In all probability they were painted to mark the marriage of Joris Vezeleer and Margaretha Boghe in 1518.9
The painting technique and the infrared reflectography findings show that the Amsterdam painting could not have been made in Joos van Cleve’s workshop, because it differs markedly from the Washington portrait. The subtle technique that Van Cleve used for the latter, with thin layers of glaze on top of one another, particularly in the face, is not found in the Amsterdam picture. The grey imprimatura and the brown underpaint under the bonnet and hair are also unusual for Van Cleve and his workshop, and for early 16th-century southern Netherlandish painting in general.10 The thin manner of painting and the smooth application of the paint point to a later date, possibly in the 17th century. Besides the Amsterdam portrait there is a second copy after the Washington panel which has the same format and size (rounded at the top and 56.5 x 39 cm) in a private collection in California.11 Whether one of these two paintings was one of the pair that belonged to Constantijn Huygens remains unknown. Furthermore it is impossible to say whether the painter of the Amsterdam or California copy can be identified with the ‘De Vos’ mentioned by Huygens, or whether this ‘De Vos’ was the Antwerp portraitist Cornelis de Vos (1583/84-1651) or a namesake.
(Micha Leeflang)
Literature
Baldass 1925, no. 37; Friedländer IX, 1931, p. 144, no. 117a; ENP IXa, 1972, p. 72, no. 117a; Hand in coll. cat. Washington 1986, p. 61; Hand 2004, pp. 61, 129-30, no. 29.1; Schlüter 2006, pp. 147-57
Collection catalogues
1976, pp. 169-70, no. A 3292
Citation
M. Leeflang, 2010, 'copy after Joos van Cleve, Portrait of Joris Vezeleer (1493-1570), after c. 1518', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8146
(accessed 23 November 2024 00:44:03).