Object data
oil on panel
support: height 96 cm × width 194 cm
Jan van Scorel (circle of)
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba
c. 1540 - c. 1545
Inscriptions
- inscription, upper right, on the cartouche: iii . Reg . X // Matth . XII // Luc . XI
Technical notes
The support consists of four horizontally grained oak planks (27.5-30.2, 29.7-26.7, 12-8.1 and 27.3-30.2 cm). They are half-lap joined and vary in thickness from approx. 0.9 to 2.2 cm. The reverse shows the marks of a woodworking tool, such as an adze or scrub plane. There is one gouge mark on the upper plank that is of the type now usually interpreted as a cargo mark. The reverse has been coated with wax. The top and bottom have thin unpainted edges of 0.1-0.5 cm. On the image side, the ground appears white to the naked eye, and a dry underdrawing can be discerned in some parts of the painting. Study with infrared reflectography reveals several different preparatory stages. Contours in black chalk clearly outline some figures and most of the architecture in the background, where the underdrawing is often quite freely sketched (fig. a). Long, straight placement lines can also be seen in the architecture, along with diagonal hatching. In the figures, there are other underlying strokes that register less strongly in infrared; these appear to have been laid in with a brush and are often woven together in a kind of wash (or possibly underpainting), as in shadows in faces. The smaller figures in the background have been executed in paint only. Several cross-sections of samples show white priming on the ground. In one sample, the underdrawing rests on this layer and, from its appearance in cross-section, may be identified as black chalk. In general, the paint was smoothly applied, with the exception of the more impasto decorative details in the costumes. There is a change visible in the standing woman who is furthest to the right: she is now seen in profile, but her head was first painted turned back to the left.
Scientific examination and reports
- paint samples: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, with the investigator, nos. A 214/1-6, 29 November 1982
- infrared reflectography: J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, RKD, nos. AB 713:14-718:9, 7 February 1983
- condition report: Z. Benders / Y. Bruijnen [2], RMA, 9 April 2008
Literature scientific examination and reports
Borchert 1984
Condition
Fair. There is some light abrasion. The varnish is discoloured.
Conservation
- W.A. Hopman, 1880: complete restoration; a brownish oil layer that covered the painting removed
Provenance
…; found in the attic of the Gouvernementsgebouw (Provincial Capitol), Groningen, 1878;1 transferred from the Gouvernementsgebouw to the museum, with SK-A-670, May 1879; on loan through the DRVK to the Gronings Museum, Groningen, since 1959
Object number: SK-A-669
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Jan van Scorel (Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562), circle of
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.2 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 Gossaert, 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.3 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 1526,4 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 Eve5 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.6 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.7 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
The painting depicts the Queen of Sheba’s meeting with Solomon, King of Israel, which is described in 1 Kings 10:1-10 and mentioned briefly in Matthew 12:42 and Luke 11:13 (as cited in the cartouche in the upper right corner; see Inscriptions). The Queen of Sheba had come to see whether Solomon’s fame was justified, and found that his ‘wisdom and prosperity’ even exceeded the reports she had heard earlier in her own land, which is thought to have been in eastern Africa. The queen is shown just to the right of centre, kneeling in deference before Solomon who is seated on a throne on a slightly raised podium. The two central personages are incorporated into a wide, multi-figured composition set against a backdrop of fanciful ‘classicising’ buildings. According to the biblical accounts, after the Queen of Sheba was satisfied that Solomon was a worthy ruler, she bestowed on him gifts of gold and great quantities of precious stones and spices, represented in this painting as the gifts held by the female servants.
Hoogewerff was the first to propose an attribution of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba to Jan Swart,8 even though he himself questioned this attribution several years later.9 His first suggestion has nonetheless been maintained in the literature, but without any conclusive arguments by scholars. This is hardly surprising, since attributions to Jan Swart derive from only a very few monogrammed woodcuts and one drawing, and the picture of Swart’s painted oeuvre is still unclear.10 General similarities nonetheless exist to some works that have traditionally been given to this artist. The painting Hoogewerff cited for comparison, Bathsheba’s Bath in Cologne,11 while quite Scorelesque, shows a similar conception for background architecture. Jan Swart’s drawing Esther before Ahasuerus12 depicts a similar event and displays a similar convention for costume, although facial types differ. The closest compositional relationship, however, is between the figures on the right side of the Rijksmuseum painting and the ruler figure, his companions, the raised podium and dog in Jan van Scorel’s Martyrdom of St Lawrence, a work that is known only through copies.13 Scorel’s lost original, one of the altarpieces for the abbey of Marchiennes, dates from the same period that Hoogewerff gives for Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, c. 1540-45.14
The attribution of the Rijksmuseum painting is complicated by the fact that so many figures and motifs have been taken from Italianate sources, many of which could have been known through prints or workshop drawings or both. Hoogewerff pointed out a number of related motifs in Raphael’s Stanze and Loggia for the kneeling man on the left, the woman turning back to him, and the Queen of Sheba’s retinue.15 Baldassare Peruzzi’s fresco of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (c. 1519), as known through an engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi (RP-P-OB-39.162),16 could have provided the general lines of the composition as well as the architectural background. Some of the figures, such as the man carrying a sack on his shoulders, reappear in Marcantonio Raimondi’s prints, such as the Man Carrying the Base of a Column (RP-P-OB-36.682), and in Jan van Scorel’s works, such as the boy kneeling on one knee in the foreground of the Lokhorst Triptych.17 Hoogewerff suggested that Mantegna’s frescoes in the church of the Eremetani in Padua provided the source for the standing soldier seen from behind on the right,18 but in fact this figure more probably derives from Marcantonio Raimondi’s print after a drawing by Peruzzi of the Triumph of Scipio (RP-P-OB-76.081).19 This print is also the source for the soldier standing just to the right. Although Hoogewerff proposed German influences for the architecture in Solomon and the Queen of Sheba,20 the extraordinary tapering towers in the background are closer to fantasy structures in a print series by Lambert Suavius dated 1560.21
Because Solomon with the Queen of Sheba was found together with Jan van Scorel’s Bathsheba (SK-A-670) in a government building in Groningen,22 it has long been assumed that the two paintings were pendants.23 Physical evidence supports this assumption. The format and measurements are close, although not identical. The panels have been constructed from three wider and one narrow plank, the latter in the same position in both paintings, just above the bottom plank. The planks in both panels have half-lap joins, which is a less common method of joining. Both panels have gouged cargo marks on their reverses, and these marks are similar in shape to each other, as well as to another in a painting that is close in date, the St Sebastian in Rotterdam dated 1542.24 This information indicates that the two panels were constructed as parts of the same commission. The brushstrokes detected in the preparatory stage are atypical of Scorel, but the white priming and black chalk underdrawing in Solomon and the Queen of Sheba link to the painting practices of Scorel’s workshop. Since the black chalk outlines seem to overlie the brushed-in layout, they serve to reinforce and correct certain features. Motifs in the underdrawing, such as the sloping eyebrows and curving lines in the neck, betray an artist with knowledge of Scorel’s drawing conventions (fig. a). Assuming the order for the two paintings was placed with one workshop, the shop must have been Scorel’s, given that so many motifs and procedures can be associated with his routine. Nonetheless, since the style of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba differs so markedly from Scorel’s workshop pieces, one is tempted to postulate that a painter outside Scorel’s shop was subcontracted to finish the painting.
Despite the fact that the commission for these two paintings must have been an important one, nothing is known about their original location. When Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and Scorel’s Bathsheba were found together in an attic of Groningen’s provincial capitol, they had reportedly hung earlier in an antechamber in the same building.25 It is unlikely the paintings hung there originally, however, since the structure did not take on a government function until 1601. Although some have speculated that the paintings might have been taken to Groningen as church property confiscated from an abbey in the region,26 it is more likely that, due to their subjects, they derive from an administrative setting. The paintings juxtapose the moralising theme of the Bathsheba with the positive consequences deriving from judicious rule of Solomon, Bathsheba’s son. Paired in an administrative setting, the two paintings might have stood as Old Testament exempla in a programme of Good and Bad Government.27
M. Faries, 2010
Literature
Hoogewerff 1923a, p. 135, no. 34 (as Scorel); Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 200, no. 309 (as Scorel); Hoogewerff III, 1939, pp. 457-60 (as Jan Swart van Groningen); Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 210-12, V, 1947, p. 78 (as Dirck Crabeth); Utrecht 1955, pp. 84-85, no. 93, with earlier literature (as Jan Swart van Groningen); Kunoth-Leifels 1962, pp. 54-55 (as Jan Swart van Groningen); ENP XII, 1975, p. 121, no. 309 (as Scorel); Borchert 1984
Collection catalogues
1880, pp. 430-31, no. 512 (as Flemish school); 1887, p. 158, no. 1333 (as Scorel); 1903, p. 245, no. 2190 (as Scorel); 1934, p. 263, no. 2190 (as Scorel); 1976, p. 531, no. A 669, with earlier literature (as attributed to Jan Swart van Groningen)
Citation
M. Faries, 2010, 'circle of Jan van Scorel, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, c. 1540 - c. 1545', in M. Ubl (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.6984
(accessed 24 November 2024 13:52:43).