Skip to Main Content
Home>Exhibitions>Past>2018>Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

January 28 – May 13, 2018
West Building, Main Floor, Northeast Galleries

Michel Sittow, Mary Rose Tudor (1496-1533), Sister of Henry VIII of England, c. 1514, oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna

This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.

Considered Estonia's greatest Renaissance artist, Michel Sittow (c. 1469–1525) was sought after by the renowned European courts of his day, including those of King Ferdinand of Aragón and Queen Isabella of Castile, Margaret of Austria, and Christian II of Denmark. Celebrating the centennial of the establishment of the Republic of Estonia, Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe provides an exceptional opportunity to examine the rare and masterful works attributed to Sittow. The exhibition explores the artist's possible collaboration with Juan de Flandes (1460–1519), his relationship with his Netherlandish contemporaries, and the influence of his likely teacher, Hans Memling (active c. 1465–1494).

Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe is the first monographic exhibition devoted to the artist. The exhibition includes some 20 paintings from American and European collections, including 13 paintings by Sittow, as well as works by Juan de Flandes, Hans Memling, and Jan Gossaert that provide a context for understanding Sittow's achievement.

Among the highlights are The Assumption of the Virgin (c. 1500/1504, National Gallery of Art, Washington) and The Ascension of Christ (c. 1500/1504, private collection), the only two securely documented works by Sittow. Commissioned by Queen Isabella of Castile, they were among 47 panels of an altarpiece dedicated to the life of Christ and the Virgin Mary. After Isabella's death in 1504, 32 of these panels, including these two and The Temptation of Christ (c. 1500/1504, National Gallery of Art, Washington) by Juan de Flandes, entered the collection of Archduchess Margaret of Austria.

Also included is the Portrait of the Danish King Christian II (1514/1515, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen), one of the few works by Sittow that is both firmly dated and in which the sitter’s identity is confirmed; x-rays reveal another portrait, possibly of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, underneath the painting, demonstrating Sittow’s reuse of panels. The exhibition also reunites two panels originally hinged together to form the devotional diptych—Madonna and Child (c. 1515/1518, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) and Portrait of Diego de Guevara (?) (c. 1515/1518, National Gallery of Art, Washington). Other highlights include Portrait of a Man (c. 1510, Mauritshuis, The Hague), as well as a portrait linked to the Tudor court in England: Mary Rose Tudor (1496–1533), Sister of Henry VIII of England (c. 1514, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), previously known as a portrait of Catherine of Aragón, and recently re-identified as the youngest sister of Henry VIII.

The exhibition is curated by John Oliver Hand, curator of Northern Renaissance paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Greta Koppel, curator of Dutch and Flemish art, Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn.

#MichelSittow

Shown from the shoulders up, a man with peachy skin looks off to our left as he holds the feathered end of an arrow up in a hand resting along the bottom edge of this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a marine-blue background, he looks into the distance with hazel eyes under bushy eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose, and his full, pale pink lips are closed. His round cheeks are tinged with pink, and there is a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his mouth and jawline. Chestnut-brown, curly hair hangs to the base of his neck, and wispy curls fall across his forehead from under his tall, chocolate-brown cap. The cap has a small gold pin high over the ear we can see. The man wears a garnet-red jacket with a black collar over a white collarless shirt decorated with five black, narrow bands below the neckline. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, rest with the fingertips braced along on the bottom edge of the painting, as if along a ledge. He pinches the shaft of an arrow with his index finger and thumb, so we see the sienna-brown feathers. He wears a gold ring embedded with a small blue gem near the first knuckle of his ring finger.
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man with an Arrow, c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Attributed to Michel Sittow, The Virgin with Child and Apple, 1480s (?), oil on panel, Szépmüvészetí Múzeum / Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, A Young Man in a Red Cap, 1490s, oil on panel, Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of Anne and Henry Ford II
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Netherlandish Artist (formerly attributed to Michel Sittow), The Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1500, oil on panel, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, Paris
A woman wearing a long, royal-blue dress is surrounded by nine winged angels as she floats on a thin, bright white, downward-pointing crescent moon above a deep landscape with a town tucked into rolling hills in this vertical painting. The woman, Mary, and all the angels have pale, peachy skin and long, brown hair. Mary and the angels float against a pale yellow and pale peach field of light enclosed within a mass of steel-gray clouds. She presses her fingertips together in front of her chest and gazes down and to our right, her dark eyes almost closed. She has a delicate, straight nose, and her small mouth is closed. Her brown hair parts in the middle and flows down over her shoulders. The angels wear flowing gowns in sky or topaz blue, olive green, tangerine orange, white, or light pink, each with matching wings. Three angels place a gold crown on Mary's head. Four others hold up the edges of a silvery white cape, which is fastened across her shoulders with brooches of white pearls surrounding ruby-red stones. The final two angels hold up the downward-facing points of the crescent moon beneath her. In the landscape below, groupings of trees are dotted among the rolling hills, with a village in the distance to our left. The blue, hazy horizon comes about a sixth of the way up the composition. A brown boulder sits in the bottom left corner, closer to us. The paint is visibly cracked throughout.
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, The Assumption of the Virgin, c. 1500/1504, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, The Ascension of Christ, c. 1500/1504, oil on panel, Private collection
To our right, a man with a long, pointed beard, wearing a fawn-brown, hooded robe, walks toward a second bearded man, to our left, wearing a cobalt-blue robe and sitting on a stone slab in front of a deep landscape, in this vertical painting. Both men have pale skin and brown hair. The man to our right faces our left in profile, and has two sharp, bone-white horns curving back from the top of his head and a claw-like, webbed foot protruding from under the hem of his monk’s robe. He has a prominent, hooked nose, sunken eyes, and he seems to look ahead, into the distance. He clutches a strand of large beads hanging from his waist with his right hand, farther from us, and holds a round, loaf-sized stone in his other hand. The body of the seated man, to our left, faces us but he turns to look off to our right with dark eyes. His left hand, to our right, rests in his lap and his other hand is raised, palm facing the walking man. Rocks and boulders lie on the ground between and around the men. Behind them, a grassy meadow dotted with tiny white flowers slopes down to a line of trees with olive-green leaves, tucked beyond the hill. One tall, spindly tree grows behind the horned man and a bird perches, wings spread, on the top. A steep, rocky cliff rises behind the seated man, to our left. Two strokes of light blue and pale beige suggest two people standing atop the cliff. Beyond, a city with tan-colored stone buildings and blue mountains are hazy in the distance. Atop a tower in the city, the pair of men appear again, with the man in brown gesturing down and the man in blue looking on. Three more birds fly across the sky, which deepens from a misty white near the mountaintops in the background to azure blue along the top edge of the panel. The surface of the painting has visible long, mostly vertical cracks throughout.
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Juan de Flandes, The Temptation of Christ, c. 1500/1504, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of a Man, c. 1510, oil on panel, Mauritshuis, The Hague, Purchase made possible by the testamentary disposition of Mr. Volz and with the support of the Rembrandt Association, 1946
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Mary Rose Tudor (1496-1533), Sister of Henry VIII of England, c. 1514, oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of the Danish King Christian II, 1514/1515, oil on panel, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Catherine of Aragón as the Magdalene, c. 1515, oil on panel (oak), Detroit Institute of Arts, Founders Society Purchase, General Membership Fund
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of a Man with a Book, c. 1515, oil on panel, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (KMSKA)
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of a Man with the Pearl, 1515–1517, oil on panel, Royal Collection, Patrimonio Nacional, Palacio Real de Madrid
Shown from the chest up, a clean-shaven, pale-skinned man holds one hand to his chest and rests the other on a rug-covered ledge with the other in this vertical portrait painting. The man’s body is angled to our left, and he looks down in that direction with dark eyes under thick brows. Crow’s feet crinkle at the corners of his eyes, and there are dark hollows underneath. Soft jowls hang to create a slight double chin. His thin lips are set in a line over a wide, round chin, which is darkened with a five o’clock shadow. He has chin-length, reddish-blond hair, and straight, wispy bangs sweep loosely across his high forehead. He wears a white chemise under a gold, brocade garment, which is mostly hidden by a slate-blue cloak. The cloak is lined with spotted fur, which is turned over to create a wide collar across his shoulders. The sleeve on his left arm, to our right and closer to us, splits over a dusky-pink sleeve. Two gold buttons on the cloak there are decorated with thistle plants and blossoms. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, are gathered like a closed rose bud at his chest. He wears a gold ring on the index finger of the other hand, which rests on the end of the gray stone ledge so his fingertips brush the tapestry draped there. The man is lit from our left against a black background.
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of Diego de Guevara (?), c. 1515/1518, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Madonna and Child, c. 1515/1518, oil on panel, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

[Left] Michel Sittow and Workshop?, Saint James the Great and the Virgin and Child, c. 1520, oil on panel, Art Museum of Estonia - Niguliste Museum; [Right] Michel Sittow and Workshop?, Saint Adrian and Saint Anthony, c. 1520, oil on panel, Art Museum of Estonia - Niguliste Museum
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of a Man with a Rosary, c. 1520, oil on panel, Private collection, Courtesy of Het Noordbrabants Museum, 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Jan Gossaert, Portrait of a Man, c. 1520/1525, oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Michel Sittow, Portrait of a Woman, early 16th century, oil on panel, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, Vienna
Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

Attributed to Michel Sittow, The Nativity at Night, early 16th century, oil on panel (oak), Upton House, The Bearsted Collection (National Trust), United Kingdom

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Art Museum of Estonia, Tallinn

Sponsors: The exhibition in Washington is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities

Passes: Admission is always free and passes are not required

Attendance: 62,815

Catalog: Michel Sittow Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe. By John Oliver Hand and Greta Koppel. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2017.

Other venues: Art Museum of Estonia - Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, June 8–September 16, 2018

Sittow, Michel
Netherlandish, 1469 - 1525
Michel Sittow
Portrait of Diego de Guevara (?)
c. 1515/1518
Michel Sittow
The Assumption of the Virgin
c. 1500
Juan de Flandes
The Temptation of Christ
c. 1500/1504
Hans Memling
Portrait of a Man with an Arrow
c. 1470/1475

Lecture: Introduction to the Exhibition—Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

March 11 at 2:00, East Building Auditorium

 

Film Program: King Lear

March 11 at 4:00, East Building Auditorium

 

Concert: Heinavanker Ensemble

April 8 at 3:30, West Building, West Garden Court

Introduction to the Exhibition-Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe
Video, Released: April 17, 2018, (39:51 minutes)
Introduction to the Exhibition-Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe
Audio, Released: March 13, 2018, (39:51 minutes)
Press Event: Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe and Outliers and American Vanguard Art
Audio, Released: January 23, 2018, (37:12 minutes)