Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

The key position of Lamentation in this proposed development is obvious, for
it encapsulates both painting methods. Generally, those paintings that still rely
on underdrawing (on the intermediate white layer) as part of the basic layout
have an early date. Whether or not the paintings were produced in Scorers
shop probably cannot be proven, but they were painted following Scorers
shop routine. The paintings without underdrawing but with black-colored
modeling appear to be later works, closer to Heemskerck's dated works of
1531 and 1532. A clearer art historical picture of the early Heemskerck is
now possible, but surely the blending of Scorers painting practices into the
build-up of some of the earliest works explains the difficulties art historians
have had in the past in attributing these paintings.
Notes
1. van Mander, K. 1604. Het Schilder-Boeck. Haarlem. Davaco ed. 1969, fol. 245.
2. Kunst voor de beeldenstorm. 1986. Exhibition catalogue. Eds. J. P. Filedt Kok, W.
Halsema-Kubes, W. Th. Kloek. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum. Especially catalogue
number 69, Rest on the Flight into Egypt (National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.c.) and catalogue number 72, Portrait oj a Young Scholar (Boymans van Beuningen
Museum, Rotterdam), which were definitively assigned to Heemskerck.
Around this same time, Adam and Eve (Hatfield House, Marquess of Salisbury)
was being shifted from Scorel to Heemskerck by the research of Faries and
Harrison.
3. Harrison, J. C. 1992. The Paintings oj Maerten van Heemskerck. (Ph.D. diss., 1987,
University of Virginia.) Ann Arbor, Michigan, esp. 11-34.
4. For the restoration, see C. Steinbuchel, "The investigation and restoration of
Maarten van Heemskerck's Lamentation oj Christ. " In Le dessin sous-jacent dans la
peinture, Colloque X: Le dessin sous-jacent dans le processus de creation, eds. R. Van
Schoute and H. Verougstraete-Marcq. Universite Catholique de Louvain, Institut
superieur d'archeologie et d'histoire de l'art. Forthcoming.
5. Faries, M. 1987. Some results of the recent Score! research: Jan van Scorel's
definition of landscape in design and color. In Color and Technique in Renaissance
Painting, Italy and the North. Ed. M. B. Hall. New York, 89-103, esp. 96.
6. van Asperen de Boer, J. R. J., M. Faries, and J. P. Filedt Kok. 1986. Painting
technique and workshop practice in northern Netherlandish art of the sixteenth
century. In Kunst voor de beelderlstorm. Exhibition catalogue. Eds. J. P. Fi!edt Kok,
W. Halsema-Kubes, W. Th. Kloek. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, esp. 108.
7. Faries, op. cit., 92.
8. For these infrared reflectography results, see M. Faries, "Attributing the layers of
Heemskerck's Cologne Lamentation oj Christ." In Le dessin sous-jacent dans la peinture,
Colloque X: Le dessin sous-jacent dans le processus de creation. Eds. R. Van
Schoute and H. Verougstraete-Marcq. Universite Catholique de Louvain, Institut
superieur d'archeologie et d'histoire de l'art. Forthcoming.
9. Sample numbers 1,2, and 27.1 show this structure. Communication from Christa
Steinbuchel to Molly Faries, 7 October 1994.
10. van Asperen de Boer, et aI., op. cit., 109.
11. Sample number 18. Communication from Christa Steinbuchel to Molly Faries,
7 October 1994.
12. The works studied, in presumed chronological order, are as follows: ca. 1527-
1530: (1) Lamentation oj Christ, private collection, New York; (2) Crucifixion,
Detroit Institute of Arts; (3) Rest on the Flight into Egypt, National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.c.; (4) Lamentation oj Christ, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne;
(5) 1531: Portrait oj a Scholar, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; (6)
1531?: Baptism oj Christ, Staatliche Museen Preuf3ischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin; (7)
1532: Christ as the Man oj SorroUls, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent; (8)
1532: St. Luke Painting a Portrait oj the Virgin and Cltild, Frans Halsmuseum,
Haarlem; (9) ca. 1530-1532: Family Portrait, Staatliche Kunstsanmilungen, Kassel.
For the lack of underdrawing revealed in the 1529 so-called Bicker Portraits in
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, see Kunst voor de beeldenstorm, op. cit., catalogue number
71.1-2.
13. van Asperen de Boer, J. R. J. 1987. A technical study of some paintings by
Maarten van Heemskerck. In Color and Technique in Renaissance Painting, Italy and
the North. Ed. M. B. Hall. New York, 105-1 14.
Faries, Steinbiichel, and van Asperen de Boer 139