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Shown from the knees up, a pale-skinned woman sits in front of a vast landscape and holds a nude baby boy on her lap in this horizontal painting. The woman, Mary, sits with her knees angled to our left, but she looks at us from the corners of brown eyes. She has a delicate nose, smooth cheeks, a pointed chin, and her pink lips are closed. A few strands of blond hair escape from braids that overlap across the top of her head. She wears a rose-red dress over a translucent white undergarment, which is visible along the neckline and on the forearms. A cloth striped with azure and powder blue, pale pink, lemon yellow, and teal drapes across her seated thighs and wraps back around her hips. One hand rests in her lap near one of the baby’s feet, and the other braces the child’s other hip. The baby, Jesus, has tightly curled blond hair and a flushed face. His body resembles a somewhat muscular adult. Jesus rests his shoulders back against the woman’s chest and turns to look up at her. One hand touches one of her breasts and the other holds a butterfly by its parchment-yellow wings. The foot not by the woman’s hand rests on a gold dagger near the woman’s far hip. A gnarled tree with dark green leaves winds from a rocky crag to our left. The pair are lit from our left, and Mary casts a shadow on the large, flat boulder on which she sits. The land dips steeply down beyond the boulder. A man wearing a pale pink garment that flaps in the wind stands on a rocky outcropping near a grazing animal. Tiny in scale, three more people walk or run in the distance to our right. Stone structures are tucked in among tree-dotted hills that roll gently back to a hazy blue, mountainous horizon, which comes about five-sixths of the way up this composition. The sky above is a similar icy blue.

Maerten van Heemskerck

The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, c. 1530

Not on View

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

overall: 57.7 × 74.7 cm (22 11/16 × 29 7/16 in.)

framed: 78.11 × 94.93 × 6.35 cm (30 3/4 × 37 3/8 × 2 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1961.9.36

Artists / Makers

Maerten van Heemskerck (painter) Netherlandish, 1498 - 1574

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Heinrich Wilhelm Campe, Leipzig [d. 1862]. His grandson, Heinrich Vieweg, Braunschweig [d. 1890];[1] his heirs; (sale, Berlin, Lepke's, 18 March 1930, no. 49, as by Jan van Scorel); Mary-Harriet (May) Howard [d. 1933] and Dr. Anton (Tonio) [1873-1941] von Riedemann, Meggen, Switzerland[2]; their heirs, Switzerland. (Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, possibly by 1945 and at least by 1947);[3] (Frederick Mont, New York); purchased 30 January 1952 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA.

[1] Ludwig Scheibler and Wilhelm Bode, "Verzeichniss der Gemalde des Jan van Scorel," Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 2 (1881), 212, record the painting as being in the Vieweg collection; for Heinrich Campe see Friedrich Winkler, "Die Sammlung Vieweg," Pantheon 5 (1930), 78, repro. 73.

[2] Two annotated Vieweg auction catalogues in the RKD Libary name the buyer of the painting as Frau T. v. Riedemann of St. Charles Hall, Meggen. Dr. Suzanne Laemers of the RKD kindly provided scans of the catalogues (see email of 25 April 2024 and copies of catalogues in curatorial files). After Tonio von Riedemann’s death in 1941, his heirs left the villa unoccupied until selling it in 1947, according to Helmut W. Rodenhausen, St. Charles Hall Meggen: Begegnungen, Kultur, Konzerte, Meggen, 2012: 70.

[3] A copy of the 1945 exhibition catalogue Meisterwerke Holländischer Malerei in which the painting appeared (no. 87), in the RKD Library and annotated by Hans Schneider, the RKD’s first director and curator of the exhibition, identifies the lender as the Galerie Fischer. A photograph of the painting held in the Friedländer archive at the RKD is annotated on the verso by Max J. Friedländer with “Fischer Luz[ern]. 1947.” Dr. Suzanne Laemers of the RKD kindly provided this information and scans of the catalogue and photograph (see emails of 23 April 2024 and 7 May 2024 in NGA curatorial file).

[4] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2283.
.

Associated Names

Campe, Heinrich Wilhelm
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Lepke Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Rudolph
Mont, Inc., Frederick
Vieweg, Heinrich
von Riedemann, Anton (Tonio)

Exhibition History

1945: Meisterwerke holländischer Malerei des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts, Öffentliche Kunstsammlung (Kunstmuseum), Basel, 1945, no. 78, as Madonna and Child by Jan van Scorel.

1955: Jan van Scorel, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 1955, no. 25, as Madonna and Child by Jan van Scorel.

1986: Art Before the Iconoclasm, North Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1986, no. 69, repro.

1993: Maerten van Heemskerck's "Panoramic Fantasy of the Ancient World", The Walter's Art Gallery, Baltimore, no cat.

Technical Summary

The panel consists of two boards with horizontal grain.[1] There are losses along the join line of these two boards. In the flesh tones, the areas of deep red, and in the buildings at the distant right, there is extensive blistering and it is possible that the painting was exposed to excessive heat. There are numerous small losses in the torso of the Christ Child. Examination with infrared reflectography reveals underdrawing, which appears to be brush. Contours and fold lines in the drapery are loosely defined; hatching is not visible. The Virgin's arm has been lowered from its underdrawn position and the fingers of her proper right hand were originally longer. The painting was restored in 1984/1985.

[1] Examination did not disclose the piece of canvas covering the board in the landscape area mentioned by Eisler 1977, 86.

Bibliography

1881: Scheibler, Ludwig, and Wilhelm Bode. "Verzeichniss der Gemälde des Jan Van Schorel." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 2 (1881): 212.

1923: Hoogewerff, G. J. Jan van Scorel. Peintre de la renaissance hollandaise. The Hague, 1923: 141, no. 20.

1924: Friedländer, Max J. Die altniederländische Malerei 14 vols. Berlin and Leiden, 1924-1937. Leiden, 1935: 12:202, no. 327. (English ed., 14 vols., Leiden, 1967-1976. Leiden, 1975: 123, no. 327, pl. 178.)

1930: Deusch, Werner R. "Die Sammlung Vieweg-Braunschweig." Die Kunstauktion [Die Weltkunst] 4 (23 February, 1930): 1-2, repro.

1930: Winkler, Friedrich. "Die Sammlung Vieweg." Pantheon 5 (1930) 78, repro. 73.

1936: Hoogewerff, G. J. De Noord-Nederlandsche Schilderkunst. 5 vols. The Hague, 1941/1942: 4:303, 305, fig. 143.

1938: Wescher, Paul. "Heemskerck und Scorel." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 59 (1938): 221-223, fig. 2.

1954: Bruyn, Josua. "Enige werken van Jan van Scorel uit zijn Haarlemse tijd (1527-1529)." Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 2 (1954): 54.

1955: Levie, Simon H. "De copie van een Bewening." Oud Holland 70 (1955): 248.

1956: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1951-56. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida and Fern Rusk Shapley. National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1956: 164, no. 64, repro., as by Jan van Scorel.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 10, fig. 5, pl. 137, as by Jan van Scorel.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 320, repro., as by Jan van Scorel.

1963: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 306, repro., as by Jan van Scorel.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 121, as by Jan van Scorel.

1968: Cuttler, Charles D. Northern Painting, from Pucelle to Bruegel: Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Centuries. New York, 1968: 452, fig. 620.

1968: Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 131, color repro. (attributed to Jan Van Scorel)

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 108, repro., as by Jan van Scorel.

1969: Osten, Gert von der, and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Baltimore, 1969: 183, pl. 163.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 322, repro., as by Jan van Scorel.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 86-88, fig. 85, as by Jan van Scorel.

1980: Grosshans, Rainald. Maerten van Heemskerck: Die Gemälde. Berlin, 1980: 47-48, 96-97, no. 8, pl. 8.

1982: Faries, Molly. "Two Additional Panels from Jan van Scorel's Workshop: Comments about Authorship." Le Dessin sous-jacent dans la peinture. Colloque IV; 29-30-31 Octobre 1981. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1982: 124-125, 129.

1983: Reznicek, E.K.J. Review of Maerten van Heemskerck. Die Gemälde by Rainald Grosshans. In Oud Holland 97 (1983): 42, 45, fig. 1, detail.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. Washington, 1984: 168, no. 189, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 199, repro.

1985: Snyder, James. Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350-1575. New York, 1985: 475, fig. 546.

1986: Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 111-117, color repro. 113.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 128-129, no. 98, color repro.

2005: Snyder, James. Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575. Rev. ed. by Larry Silver and Henry Luttikhuizen. Upper Saddle River, 2005: 491-492, col. fig. 21.10.

2011: Helmus, Liesbeth M. Catalogue of Paintings, 1363-1600, Centraal Museum Utrecht. Utrecht, 2011: 217, under no. 24, color fig. 8.