Object data
oil on panel
support: height 64.3 cm × width 54.5 cm
Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen
The Holy Family
? Mechelen, c. 1528 - c. 1530
Inscriptions
- signature, top right, above the Virgin’s shoulder (I and C ligated): IOANES VERMI PinGEBAT/IC
Technical notes
The support consists of two vertically grained oak panels (27.3/27.2 and 27/27.4 cm), 0.5-0.6 cm thick. Three horizontal battens were attached to the reverse, and were later removed and replaced by squared inserts across the join. The left and right sides of the reverse are bevelled. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1511. The panel could have been ready for use by 1522, but a date in or after 1536 is more likely. While the ground and intermediate layer extend to all edges, there are unpainted edges 0.8 cm wide at top and bottom. The lower part of the left edge is also unpainted (painted surface: 62.6 x 53.5 cm). Microscopic analysis of the paint sample shows that the ground is covered with a peach-coloured priming. Infrared reflectography revealed a summary underdrawing in a wet medium applied with the brush in the draperies and elsewhere. The method can best be seen in the blue drapery under Christ’s feet and in Joseph’s sleeve, which was drawn lower down, encroaching on the white garment on the Virgin’s shoulder. Infrared reflectography suggests that the Child’s left hand was not planned in its present position, for it overlaps the Virgin’s shoulder. The Virgin’s robe was extended here, and there are several other slight changes in the contours. The painting method is direct, with a simple build-up of opaque layers and glazes. Delicate and feathery wet-in-wet brushwork was used for some areas of the finished surface, similar to the technique employed for the companion panel with De la Marck’s portrait (SK-A-4069). The white sleeve at the Virgin’s right (proper left) shoulder consists of a blended scumble of grey carefully worked up with wet streaks over white. Cross-section analysis confirmed that the triangle of green fabric at centre left was executed with identical paint layers and layer structure as the curtain held aloft by the angels in the companion panel. Gold leaf was applied on a whitish mordant for the red carnation; the centre of the flower is gilded and has a red glaze on top.
Scientific examination and reports
- X-radiography: RMA, nos. 1115-18, 1962
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 1985
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 27 October 1995
- X-radiography: R. Spronk / C. Metzger [2], SRAL, 2003
- condition report: R. Spronk / C. Metzger [2], RMA, 2003
- infrared reflectography: R. Spronk / C. Metzger [2], SRAL, 2003
- paint samples: M. Gifford / A. Bagley-Young [2], Frans Halsmuseum, 2006
Literature scientific examination and reports
Spronk and Metzger in Washington etc. 2006, pp. 299-300; Bagley-Young 2008; Wallert et al. 2009
Condition
Fair. Like the Portrait of Erard de la Marck (SK-A-4069), the painting has been deliberately damaged. Scratches were made in the Child’s body, and his genitals were partially removed. There are some smaller losses, areas of abrasion and slightly raised paint. The fabric around the Child’s body, which was painted with a copper green glaze, has turned brown. However, the green drapery on the left side of the composition appears less discoloured than the curtain in the background of the De la Marck painting. Fading is evident in the red lake used to paint the Virgin’s clothing. The azurite of her blue robe has darkened.
Conservation
- A. Bagley-Young, 2006: varnish and overpaint removed; filled, retouched and revarnished
Provenance
...; ? estate inventory, Archduchess Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), 1524-30 (‘Ung tableau, paint d’ung cousté d’une Nostre-Dame et de l’autre du cardinal de Liège, fermant à deux fuilletz.’);1 ...; dealer, Edward Speelman, London 1937:2 ...; dealer, P. Cassirer, Amsterdam, 1938;3 ? exhibited by the dealer J.A. Bier, Haarlem;4 ...; from the dealer P. Cassirer to the dealer W.A. Hofer, Berlin, 25 November 1940;5 ...; from Helmuth Roehnert, Berlin, to Hermann Göring, Berchtesgaden, 12 January 1941;6 transferred to the collecting point, Munich, 1946;7 transferred to the Rijksschuilkelder, Zandvoort, 12 March 1946;8 collection SNK, The Hague, no. 528, since 1946;9 collection DRVK, The Hague, since 1952; collection RBK, The Hague, no. NK2596, since 1984; collection ICN, Rijswijk, 1997; from which institution on loan to the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, since 1948
Object number: SK-C-1701
Credit line: On loan from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, Amersfoort
Copyright: Public domain
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 1503.10 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
See the entry on SK-A-4069.
Literature
Friedländer XIV, 1937, p. 130; Wescher 1938, p. 228; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 279-82 (as c. 1545); Friedländer 1942, pp. 20-22; Utrecht 1955, no. 94; Haak 1963, pp. 18-19; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 132, 141, no. supp. 417 (as c. 1525-30); Bruyn 1984, pp. 1-3; Horn 1989, I, pp. 5-6, 9-10; Van den Boogert in Utrecht-’s-Hertogenbosch 1993, p. 322, nos. 220-21; Eichberger 2002, pp. 203, 379-80; Torringa in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 620-21, no. 463; Hand in Washington etc. 2006, pp. 236-39, 299-300, no. 35; Hendrikman 2007; Bagley-Young 2008
Citation
(accessed 28 April 2024 18:07:09).