Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract
Based on extensive information from
cross sections and infrared reflectography,
this paper presents some aspects
of painting technique that were
held in common by Jan van Scorel,
the head of a productive sixteenthcentury
North Netherlandish workshop,
and Maarten van Heemskerck,
his best-known assistant. Some of the
idiosyncrasies in Heemskerck's painting
technique differ from Scorel's
studio routine and are more apparent
in this artist's early works.
Maarten van Heemskerck and Jan van Scorel's Haarlem
Workshop
Molly Faries*
Henry Radford Hope School of Art
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405
USA
Christa Steinbuchel
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
Bischofsgarten 1
W-5000 Kaln
Germany
J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer
Groningen University
Department for the History of Art and Architechture
Oude Boteringestraat
p. 0. Box 716
9700 AS Groningen
The Netherlands
Introduction
From the records of the Mariakerk in Utrecht where Jan van Scorel held
clerical office, the precise dates of his stay in Haarlem are known: 29 April
1527 to 28 September 1530. Karel van Mander's Schilder-Boeck, the primary
source on the workshop Scorel established in Haarlem during that time, reports
that Scorel rented a house in order to take on students. In the biographies
of other sixteenth-century North Netherlandish painters, including
Jan Swart van Groningen or Jan Vermeyen, Mander implies that these painters
were either Scorel's students or were somehow in contact with his shop.
Modern scholars have added other likely (and not so likely) names to Mander's
list, including Comelis Buys, Herman Postma, and Jan Stephan van Calcar,
but the assistant whom Mander described at some length was Maarten
van Heemskerck. According to Mander, Heemskerck applied himself diligently
in Scorel's Haarlem studio, eventually producing works that were indistinguishable
from those of his master. In Mander's rather dramatic account,
Heemskerck finally surpassed the de Const (artistry) of his master, only to be
dismissed from the shop, ostensibly because of Scorel's jealousy (1). However
anecdotal this story might seem, art historians have indeed had difficulties
distinguishing early works by Heemskerck from Scorel's work. For most of
the twentieth century, early Heemskerck artworks were attributed to Scorel;
it was not until the 1980s that several key attributions were changed, primarily
in the 1986 Art Before Iconoclasm exhibition (2). Jeff Harrison's recently
published dissertation on Heemskerck is the first to outline a new and plausible
chronology for his early works (3).
Jan van Scorel's technique
Full technical studies have been carried out by Molly Faries and J. R. J. van
Asperen de Boer on a number of paintings by Jan van Scorel from this period,
including examination by binocular microscope, infrared reflectography, X­
radiography, dendrochronology, and sampling. Until the new shifts in attribution,
few early works of Heemskerck had been studied as thoroughly. This
situation changed with the recent cleaning of Lamentation (Wallraf-Richartz­
Museum, Cologne), a painting attributed variously to Scorel, Heemskerck, or
an anonymous artist from the same period. The research in conjunction with
this restoration, carried out under the direction of Christa Steinbuchel, has
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Faries, Steinbuchel, and van Asperen de Boer 135