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Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (before restoration), 1532, oil on panel, 168 x 235 cm, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
The iconic St. Luke Painting the Virgin (1532) by Maarten van Heemskerck (Heemskerk, 1498 – Haarlem, 1574) has been thoroughly examined and restored ahead of the first ever retrospective of the artist’s work. During the process, it became clear that the painting originally consisted of two parts, which were joined using a connecting section added in the late 16th century, after the iconoclasm. The background was also found to have been overpainted in the 17th century. The overpainting has now been removed, revealing the original colours, which give the work more depth and spatiality, and make it even more enthralling. In technical terms it is a very complex process to remove a 17th-century overpainting from an original 16th-century paint layer. Following extensive research, however, the team succeeded in performing what can rightly be called a groundbreaking restoration. The conservation work has also given us more information about the artist’s studio practice, and how innovative he was for his time. The painting will be shown as two separate parts for the first time in four centuries, along with 132 other works, including 49 paintings by this enterprising artist, in the exhibition Maarten van Heemskerck.
Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (during restoration, April 2024), 1532, oil on panel, 168 x 235 cm, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo Ton van der Heide
Lidewij de Koekkoek – director of the Frans Hals Museum: “These discoveries give us important new insights into the work and studio practice of Van Heemskerck. He is rightly regarded as one of the most important 16th-century artists of the Northern Netherlands. Along with Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and Teylers Museum, we will be hosting the first ever retrospective of work by this artist – and not before time!”
Exhibition
Half of artist’s paintings on show together at first ever retrospective.
The first ever Maarten van Heemskerck (Heemskerk, 1498 - Haarlem, 1574) retrospective will be held at the Frans Hals Museum, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and Teylers Museum from 28 September 2024 to 19 January 2025. 450 years after the artist’s death, masterpieces by Heemskerck will travel to the Netherlands from 12 different countries. Institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), The National Gallery (London), the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam), the National Museum in Warsaw and the Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin) will lend important pieces, many of which have never before been exhibited in the Netherlands. The exhibition will highlight the innovative, expressive and theatrical nature of the work of this Dutch Renaissance artist.
Madonna, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (before restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
Work by Heemskerck is found all round the world at many important museums and in private collections. Only a small proportion of his work is in the Netherlands. With 50 paintings, 16 drawings and 68 prints by Heemskerck, the museums will offer a representative impression of Heemskerck’s large body of work, in this exhibition at three locations. No fewer than half the paintings attributed to Heemskerck will be temporarily brought together in the Netherlands. The selected works are those held to be of the highest quality, and others that have only recently been attributed to Heemskerck. Some come from private collections, so are normally not easily accessible to the general public.
Madonna, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (during restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
Three distinct periods
Each museum will showcase a distinct period from the life of this influential and successful 16th-century artist. The Frans Hals Museum, focusing on the ‘Bold Innovator’, will present Heemskerck’s earliest known work – from expressive religious paintings to lifelike portraits of the emerging bourgeoisie, complete with wrinkles – combined with that of contemporaries like Jan van Scorel and Jan Gossart. Heemskerck was bold in terms of his innovative, realistic style of painting. In ‘To Rome’, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar will present an account of Heemskerck’s trip to Italy and show how it resulted in work that was audacious and – at that time – surprising and innovative. He arrived in Rome just as the first statues from antiquity were being excavated. While there, Heemskerck also encountered the work of Michelangelo, Raphael and their contemporaries. This all made a huge impression on him, and his style became even more expressive and dynamic, making him the most important representative of the Italian Renaissance in the northern Netherlands. In ‘Pioneer on Paper’, Teylers Museum will present Heemskerck as an innovator in Dutch printing. With over 60 prints, the museum will showcase the artist as a successful businessman. His prints were sold far and wide and became a source of inspiration for Rembrandt and other artists.
Hand of the inspirer, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (before restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
Many highlights
Besides the absolute masterpiece Saint Luke Painting the Madonna of 1532 from its own collection, which is currently undergoing a spectacular metamorphosis and will be presented in a completely restored state, the Frans Hals Museum will also be showing several outstanding early portraits. Portrait of a Woman Spinning (circa 1528) from Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid), which has never before been shown in the Netherlands, will be one of the highlights. In this painting, Heemskerck depicts a woman working at a spinning wheel indoors, with a basket containing scissors and yarn hanging behind her on the wall. At the time, a portrait in such a realistic domestic setting was something entirely new. One of the highlights in Alkmaar will be Heemskerck’s Rome drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett (Berlin). These personal testimonies to Heemskerck’s inspiring trip are normally bound in an album and are seldom exhibited because they are so fragile. In addition, Heemskerck’s impressive Ecce Homo or Drenckwaert Triptych altarpiece (1544) from the National Museum in Warsaw will be on display. This rare, fully intact altarpiece by the master – never before shown in the Netherlands – is actually still in its original frame. With important loans from the Noord-Holland Provincial Archives and the Rijksmuseum, Teylers Museum will show a selection of the best contemporary prints of Heemskerck’s work, alongside two etchings by Rembrandt from its own collection.
Hand of the inspirer, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (during restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
Extensive research
Prior to the exhibition Professor Emeritus Ilja Veldman, who is also the guest curator at all three museums, has performed extensive research. Her work has produced some important new insights, including changes to attributions, identifications of portrait subjects, and also new information on Heemskerck’s network and process.
Head of the inspirer, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (before restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
Publication
A book on the life and work of Maarten van Heemskerck written by Professor Emeritus Ilja Veldman, with additional contributions on Heemskerck’s materials and techniques by Jessica Roeders and Mireille te Marvelde (conservators at the Frans Hals Museum), will be published to accompany the exhibition. The lavishly illustrated book – the first to consider Heemskerck’s body of work in its entirety – will be published in both English and Dutch by WBOOKS, 304 pages, 23 x 27 cm, paperback with cover flaps, price € 39.95.
Head of the inspirer, detail from: Maarten van Heemskerck, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna (during restoration), 1532, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, photo René Gerritsen
The exhibition is sponsored by the Turing Foundation, the Mondrian Fund, the Culture Fund and the J.C. Ruigrok Stichting. The publication is sponsored by Fondation Custodia, the Hendrik Muller Fund and Stichting Dorodarte.