Panel Painting Portrait of Jan van Scorel
Object number
LDSAL338
Artist/Designer/Maker
Mor van Dashorst, Anthonis - Artist
Production date
1560
Material
oil paint
oak
oak
Dimensions
height (frame): 745mm
width (frame): 750mm
width (frame): 750mm
Location
Burlington House - (on display)
Object history note
The portrait has been in England since the late eighteenth century. Thomas Kerrich acquired it from a ‘Mr Taylor’ on 7 December 1800. It had presumably remained in Scorel’s possession until his death in 1562, whereupon it was incorporated in the wall-mounted funerary monument erected #in his memory inside the Mariakerk, Utrecht. The portrait was removed from that setting some time before 1592, for at that point it was with one of Scorel’s grandsons, probably Cornelis van Sijpenesse (d 1635). It is thought to have been sold anonymously in Amsterdam for 13 guilders on 22 March 1700. In 1773, having left the collection of Jan van der Marck, of Leiden, the panel was allegedly sold in Amsterdam to a person called Menoutzi (Menucci). Before the end of the century, Thomas Kerrich had acquired it for the Cambridge lawyer Thomas Lombe. After Lombe’s death in 1800, Kerrich bought the portrait from a person called Taylor (probably the dealer who had acquired Lombe’s pictures). Kerrich’s eagerness to own the painting possibly stemmed from his particular interest in the work of Maarten Heemskerck, Scorel’s pupil.
Inscriptions
Inscription content
ANT. MORVS PHI. HISP. REGIS PICT.
Io. SCORELIO PICTORI F.
Ao M D L X
Io. SCORELIO PICTORI F.
Ao M D L X
Inscriber role/association
Artist
References
Reference (controlled)
Portraits of the Renaissance in the Low Countries (2015). [Exhibition]. Bozar, Centre for Fine Arts, Brussels. 5 February 2015 - 17 May 2015.
Oil on oak panel portrait of Jan van Scorel (1495-1562), housed within 18th century frame.
Frame: Square, gilded, with relief foliate ornament in gesso in the spandrels.
This is a picture of one highly successful sixteenth-century north Netherlandish artist by another. Among the finest and best documented of the panels in the Society’s collection, this portrait of Jan van Scorel, painted by his former apprentice, Anthonis Mor, was produced in Utrecht, just as the regime under which both men had flourished was on the brink of transformation.
Jan van Scorel (1495–1562), painter, clergyman, musician, writer, humanist and antiquary, took his name from his birthplace, the town of Schoorl near Alkmaar. Anthonis Mor was born in Utrecht and had become Scorel’s assistant by c 1540.
Scorel was unusually honoured among contemporary Netherlandish artists in having an imposing funerary monument erected to his memory in a major church. In all likelihood, Mor’s portrait of him was always intended to form part of the tomb, which Scorel perhaps designed himself, in collaboration with Jacob Colijn de Nole (d 1601). After Scorel’s death in 1562, the portrait was inserted into the circular frame provided for it in the wall-mounted monument in the Mariakerk. Within thirty years of its installation, however, Scorel’s likeness had been prised from its setting and removed, in unrecorded circumstances. In 1566, the city and surrounding province were shaken by Protestant rebellion against the imperial establishment, accompanied by bouts of iconoclasm. Although directed principally at sacred images, acts of violence were also levelled at secular monuments. Scorel’s portrait would have been an obvious target if, as seems likely, it bore the inscription it carries today, with its imperialist connotations. Perhaps in the volatile climate of the late 1560s, Scorel’s family decided to remove his portrait to a place of safety.
Jan van Scorel (1495–1562), painter, clergyman, musician, writer, humanist and antiquary, took his name from his birthplace, the town of Schoorl near Alkmaar. Anthonis Mor was born in Utrecht and had become Scorel’s assistant by c 1540.
Scorel was unusually honoured among contemporary Netherlandish artists in having an imposing funerary monument erected to his memory in a major church. In all likelihood, Mor’s portrait of him was always intended to form part of the tomb, which Scorel perhaps designed himself, in collaboration with Jacob Colijn de Nole (d 1601). After Scorel’s death in 1562, the portrait was inserted into the circular frame provided for it in the wall-mounted monument in the Mariakerk. Within thirty years of its installation, however, Scorel’s likeness had been prised from its setting and removed, in unrecorded circumstances. In 1566, the city and surrounding province were shaken by Protestant rebellion against the imperial establishment, accompanied by bouts of iconoclasm. Although directed principally at sacred images, acts of violence were also levelled at secular monuments. Scorel’s portrait would have been an obvious target if, as seems likely, it bore the inscription it carries today, with its imperialist connotations. Perhaps in the volatile climate of the late 1560s, Scorel’s family decided to remove his portrait to a place of safety.