Jan van Scorel’s Drawing and Painting Technique Molly Faries

1 ‘Een onghemeen schoonder nieuw manier van werken uit Italien ghebracht’, Van Mander 1604, fol. 245r. 2 Meyer 1955, pp. 189-193, and Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 111. 3 See the glossary for more detailed descriptions of the techniques, pp. 429-431. 4 Altogether, samples of Scorel’s works number over 300, from around 30 paintings done at all stages of Scorel’s activity. Some were taken for pigment identification, and others to verify modeling techniques and paint-layer structure. The first results were published by J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer in Utrecht/Douai 1977, pp. 51-55. This material was later compiled by MF in an unpublished manuscript and organized according to colour and colour mixtures, paint-layer structure, and frequent and unusual occurrences. 5 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986.

To Karel van Mander, Jan van Scorel made a lasting contribution to the art of his native land by bringing ‘back from Italy an unusual and much more beautiful, novel manner of working’.1 Van Mander’s use of the word manier, as has been proposed on several occasions, may be interpreted as meaning ‘technique’.2 Technique must certainly be considered in any evaluation of Scorel’s works, since during the artist’s early travels, with stays in Venice and Rome, his works were transformed not only visually but also structurally, from the ground up. This can be recognized in the working routine that Scorel employed in his first Utrecht commissions, such as the Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526 (cat. no. 22), and further systematized in the shop he established in Haarlem from c. 1527-1530. This essay will highlight paintings in the Centraal Museum’s collection, while referring as well to other works in the larger Scorel group. The information presented here derives from various types of technical examination: infrared reflectography, X-radiography, study with the stereomicroscope, and analysis of paint samples.3 The results of dendrochronology are discussed in the article by Molly Faries and Peter Klein. The description of painting technique included in this essay relies on samples that were taken by J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer while collaborating with Molly Faries in technical examinations of Scorel’s works in the late 1970s. In preparing this material for study, J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer was responsible for mounting and sectioning the samples, primarily for visual microscopy, but also for microchemical testing and occasional instrumental analysis.4 Some findings also derive from recent restoration campaigns at the Centraal Museum. In this essay, Jan van Scorel’s drawing and painting technique will be discussed in context, with reference to other European artists, both in the north and south. While the text will refer regularly to the valuable overview of north Netherlandish painting technique published in the Art Before Iconoclasm exhibition catalogue in 1986, it will also include information from many technical studies that have appeared since that date.5 The Layered Structure of Jan van Scorel’s Panel Paintings The Support: Canvas, Panel, and Frame All of Scorel’s surviving works are wooden panels. The kind of wood used depended on whatever raw materials were available locally, or could be imported. Not surprisingly, all of the panels Scorel painted after returning from Italy are oak. This wood, which we now know was imported from the Baltic region, is found so frequently in Netherlandish panel paintings that one could say oak was used almost exclusively. On the other hand, the woods identified in Scorel’s early paintings read like a diary of his

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travels.6 High in the Austrian Alps, when painting the Holy Kinship Altarpiece, Scorel used the wood available there, stone pine.7 For another work close in date, the recently-attributed Adoration of the Magi in The Art Institute of Chicago, Scorel employed fir.8 Once Scorel arrived in Venice, he painted on the poplar supports that were customary in Italy, as

6 For a summary of the wood identifications, see Faries and Wolff 1996, p. 730, and Faries 2007, pp. 105-106. 7 Jan van Scorel, Holy Kinship Altarpiece, 1519. Panel, 142 x 144.5 cm (middle panel); 141 x 61.5 (wings). Obervellach, Sankt Martin. 8 Jan van Scorel, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1519. Panel, 44.4 x 55.2 cm. Chicago, The Art Institute. 9 Jan van Scorel, Landscape with Tournament and Hunters, c. 1519-1520. Panel, 57.8 x 138.5 cm. Chicago, The Art Insitute, and Jan van Scorel, Tobias and the Angel, 1521. Panel, 45.6 x 88.5 cm. Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum. 10 Faries and Wolff 1996, p. 733. 11 Verougstraete-Marcq and Van Schoute 1989, p. 5. 12 Muller 1880a, pp. 8-10. 13 Bangs 1974, pp. 225-226. Another painter, Cornelis Cornelisz Kunst, had already prepared the panels for Scorel by applying a ground and perhaps a priming (‘witse ende maectse gereedt met die verve daer toe dienende’). 14 Van Bleyswijck 1667, pp. 256-259, as cited by Faries 1972, pp. 270-273, and Faries 1975, pp. 91 and 149. For a discussion of the contracts, see Helmus 2010, pp. 251-258, and for a full transcription, pp. 426-427. 15 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 107.

has been confirmed by Peter Klein for at least two works from this period, the Chicago Landscape with Tournament and Hunters and the Tobias and the Angel dated 1521.9 For the beech wood identified in another work attributed to Scorel, see The Dying Cleopatra (cat. no. 20). At the same time Scorel was using these different woods, he was also encountering new panel formats, especially the low, oblong shape of spalliera panels that he painted in Venice. This form has its echoes in Scorel’s later works, such as The Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22).10 In Scorel’s time, a panel painting was classed as a piece of furniture.11 Cabinetmakers and/or joiners would have been responsible for making the panels, although in most cases, the painters or commissioners would have placed the orders for them. In Utrecht, these craftsmen were members of the Joiners’ guild (Bijlhouwersgilde), a different guild than the one to which painters belonged, the Saddlers’ guild.12 Some documents associated with Scorel confirm this customary division of labor. In 1541 or 1542, the artist traveled to Leiden to paint the portraits of some members of the Leiden Jerusalem Brotherhood. The Leiden cabinetmaker (scrynwercker), Jan Kerstantsz, had already made the panels, which were at his house ready to be painted.13 In 1550, when the churchmasters of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft, drew up a contract with Scorel for an altarpiece (now lost), they also made a separate contract with the cabinetmaker (schrijnwerker) who was to provide the altar housing, predella, and all the frames and panels belonging to this work. The contract further stipulated that the cabinetmaker was to follow the model provided (presumably by Scorel).14 General artisanal practice determined the relationship of the panel to the frame. For many sixteenth-century north Netherlandish works, including those by Scorel, the painting and frame were executed separately.15 The paint surface on most of the artist’s panels extends to the edges, indicating that the panels were slid into their frames after they had been painted. Scorel’s Lamentation provides a good example of this practice. Traces of original paint run to all four edges on the image side (see cat. no. 25), while on the back, there are evenly spaced holes along the top and bottom edges where dowels were probably inserted to secure the panel once it had been let into its frame (figs. 1a-b). In a smaller number of cases, mostly panels in altarpieces, there is evidence that Scorel’s cabinetmakers still followed the practice that was more frequent in the preceding century. Here the panel and frame were made as a single unit, and the ground and paint extended from the surface of the panel onto the frame. One work in

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Fig. 1a-b Jan van Scorel, Lamentation of Christ with a Donor, c. 1535. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Notch on the reverse with beveling running to one of the vertical sides and notch at the edge of the panel

16 If a barb is present, it is mentioned in the catalogue numbers under technical notes. 17 One of the artist’s early paintings was described in a collection in Venice around 1521 as ‘la tela’ (canvas) with the Drowning of the Pharaoh’s Army in the Red Sea by the hand of ‘Zuan Scorel de Holanda’, but a painting matching this description has since been discovered, and it is on wood, most likely poplar (see Faries and Wolff 1996, p. 727). 18 The 1550 contract made with Scorel for the altarpiece for the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft also mentions that paintings on the reverse should be in watercolour; see above, note 14. Van Mander 1604, fol. 236r. 19 For tüchlein, see the glossary on p. 431. 20 Van Mander 1604, fol. 235v. For the inventory listing ‘Eerst vier stucken van waterverff groot zijnde, wesende van de handelinge van Schorel’, see Brom 1901, p. 395. 21 See for his first commissions in Utrecht, including the wings for Oudmunster’s high altar, Scorel’s biography, pp. 167-169. Wolfthal 1989, p. 20, mentions that because of its lightness, canvas was ideal for organ wings. 22 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 107, citing works by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Cornelis Engelbrechtsz, and Lucas van Leyden. 23 The results derive from microchemical testing by J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer; he has determined chalk for at least five different works, and gesso for the 1521 Tobias and the Angel (note 9) done in Venice (for the latter identification, see Faries and Wolff 1996, p. 730 (note 27)). 24 This applies to the Adoration of the Magi and Landscape with Tournament and Hunters in Chicago, see notes 8 and 9, and Faries and Wolff 1996, p. 730. 25 Faries 2007, p. 109, describing the microchemistry; see also cat. no. 20 for discussion of the gesso ground in the Cleopatra attributed to Jan van Scorel. 26 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 107. Faries in The Dictionary of Art 1996, p. 218. 27 The thin ground in The Lokhorst Triptych has been noted by Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 51.

the larger Scorel group, the De Visscher van der Gheer triptych (cat. no. 34) still has its original frame, allowing us to see that the artist’s paint strokes extended out onto the frame – even more than once (fig. 2a-b). When shrinkage occurred or the frame was lost, paint often cracked at the juncture with the frame, causing an original, rough paint edge to appear – the barb – next to an unpainted wooden rim (see fig. 2a-b). A barb occurs in several of Scorel’s works in the Centraal Museum’s collection.16 Historical records suggest that Jan van Scorel occasionally painted on canvas, although none of these works survives.17 When describing Scorel’s paintings for the high altar of Utrecht’s Mariakerk, Karel van Mander mentions that two wings remained unfinished for years and that Scorel made a temporary substitute for them by painting one large canvas in watercolour.18 This would no doubt have been done in a glue medium, corresponding to the so-called tüchlein technique.19 A slightly later Utrecht inventory (1624) implies that Scorel painted similar large canvasses more than once. The ‘four large pieces in watercolour done in Scorel’s manner’ listed among the possessions deriving from the dean of Oudmunster, Herman van Lokhorst, probably refer to the unspecified watercolours Van Mander says Scorel painted for his important Utrecht patron just after he returned from Italy.20 These may relate to one of Scorel’s first commissions for Oudmunster, in all probability the wings Scorel painted for the new organ in 1524.21 Although several of Scorel’s contemporaries are also known to have painted in this technique, only a handful of north Netherlandish paintings on canvas have been preserved.22 The Ground and Priming Layers Like wood, the substance used to prepare the surface of panels for painting was a bulk commodity, and the material that was commonly available varied in northern and southern Europe. The ground of the paintings Scorel executed in the Netherlands is always chalk (or calcium carbonate, CaCO3) bound in glue, while that in most of the artist’s early works done in Venice has been identified as gesso (or gypsum, calcium sulfate, CaSO4).23 Some of the artist’s early paintings may have been done in more unusual circumstances, for one work has a double ground in two different materials (chalk and dolomite) and another has no ground in the traditional sense, but a priming laid directly on the wooden support.24 Another painting in the Centraal Museum’s collection, Lambert Sustris’s Preaching of John the Baptist, which is now known to have been painted in Italy, conforms to regional custom in that it has a gesso ground on a poplar panel (cat. no. 39).25 After Scorel returned north, his chalk grounds do not differ in any significant ways from those of his contemporaries, except that they are somewhat thinner. In colour, they are usually an off white, greyish or brownish. The ground is actually visible to the naked eye on the left side of Scorel’s Lamentation of Christ with Portraits of Members of the Van Egmond Family, and it is whitish in colour (cat. no. 33). At this time, grounds were seldom thicker than 0.2 mm, and Scorel’s even average a little less: they are rarely more than 0.15 mm and occasionally, even under 0.05 mm.26 A ground’s thickness would of course vary across the surface of a panel, depending on how much was required to fill the uneven surface of the support. One sample taken from The Lokhorst Triptych still has wood attached and shows a ground that is even thinner than the paint layer (fig. 3).27 Scorel’s thin grounds have sometimes affected the condition of his works, and it is often possible to see slight irregularities of the wood surface when looking at the paintings in raking light.

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Fig. 2a Jan van Scorel (workshop) and Jan Deys, The De Visscher van der Gheer Family Triptych, c. 1555 (middle panel), c. 1570 (wings). Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Detail of the left interior wing showing the barb at the juncture of the painted surface and the frame Fig. 2b Photomicrograph showing paint extending from the right interior wing onto the frame 3 x 35 mm film

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28 Priming is the term preferred in this text, but the layer is also called an isolation layer or an intermediate layer; see the glossary, p. 430. 29 Faries in The Dictionary of Art 1996, p. 218. 30 See for overviews of priming, Campbell, Foister and Roy 1977a, pp. 22-25; Spring 2004, p. 21. A similar priming also occurs in Polidoro da Caravaggio; see Keith, Moore Ede and Plazzotta 2004, p. 41. 31 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 108. Only a few works by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen have been sampled, but it is significant that the Witch of Endor, 1526. Panel, 85.5 x 122.8 cm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, does not have a priming layer, despite the fact that the technique of this work supposedly shows Scorel’s influence (see Amsterdam 1986, cat. no. 20, pp. 133-134, mentioning 17 samples taken by J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer). Jacob Cornelisz seems to have made underdrawings in black chalk in about half of the paintings studied with IRR, where one could also presume the use of a priming layer. During the IRR examination of fragments of Jacob Cornelisz’s Fragments of a Crucifixion with Korsgen Elbers and his Family, c. 1506. Panel, 90 x 57 cm (left fragment), and 89 x 73 cm (right fragment). Amsterdam, Amsterdam Museum, 6 March 1997, MF detected the streaking of some sort of isolation, or priming layer.

32 The layer can be discerned in cross-sections taken from the wings of the 1519 Obervellach altarpiece, see note 7 (AB sample nos. A 123/78), and occurs, but only in part of the Tobias and the Angel done in Venice in 1521, as a grey intermediate layer, see note 9 (sample no. A 124/2), which is also visible in X-ray and IRR. 33 Roy, Spring and Plazzotta 2004, p. 5. 34 The analysis of one of Scorel’s primings suggests that this might be the case. The SEM EDX analysis of a greyish particle in the priming layer in Jan van Scorel’s Baptism of Christ, c. 1530. Panel, 120.5 x 156.5 cm. Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, revealed manganese (as, for instance, in a soda-lime type glass) in addition to calcium, silicon and potassium (correspondence from Mark Richter and Robert Fuchs, Cologne, Fachhochschule, to AB, 21 January 1998). To confirm that pulverized glass was more prevalent in Scorel’s priming or paint layers, samples would have to be studied using the scanning electron microscope. I am also grateful to Marika Spring, National Gallery, London, for discussing these results with me.

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Fig. 3 Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Cross-section from in the green background of the left exterior wing, layers from the bottom up: 1) oak panel 2) beige-grey ground 3) white priming layer 4) layer with thickly packed, round green particles 5) varnish 6) light green retouch 200 x 35 mm film

The next phase in the painting process, the priming on the ground, is an important feature of Scorel’s painting technique.28 Priming layers are generally assumed to have been applied in the painter’s shop, as is not always necessarily the case with the ground. For Scorel, it is clear that the assimilation of this practice was complete only by the time of his return to Utrecht. Priming then formed a regular part of his painting practice and was multi-functional, serving to isolate the ground from the paint, to increase the luminosity of the ground, and, of special significance, to provide a substratum for the underdrawing.29 Recent research has shown that a thin, white or pale yellow priming layer was in widespread use in Europe when Scorel began his career. It has been discovered not only in German and Netherlandish paintings, but also in a good number of works by early sixteenth-century Italian artists, such as Perugino, Raphael, and others.30 This layer is notably lacking, however, in works by Scorel’s north Netherlandish contemporaries, including the paintings by Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen that have been sampled so far.31 If priming was not a routine part of Jacob Cornelisz’s paint-layer build-up, it is unlikely that Scorel could have learned the technique as an assistant in this master’s workshop. Although the first appearances of a white priming layer in Scorel’s works are anything but consistent, he seems to have picked up the technique by the time of his stay in Venice, c. 1520-1521, and would have encountered it again in Rome.32 Raphael’s paintings routinely include a thin, white priming layer, often containing some lead-tin yellow and small amounts of powdered glass, probably intended as a siccative.33 As yet, it has not been possible to ascertain if Scorel’s priming might also contain tiny particles of glass.34 In view of the prevailing evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that in assimilating the use of a thin, white priming layer during his early travels, Scorel was not innovating, but instead, bringing his own technique in line with widespread practice. Scorel’s habitual use of this priming layer went hand in hand with the shift to black chalk as his preferred underdrawing material. This occurred by the time Scorel returned to Utrecht, when the artist invariably made his underdrawings on top of the priming. Although there is not extensive evidence about the underdrawing’s position in works by other masters,

35 Roy, Spring and Plazzotta 2004, pp. 14, 18 and 26: two of the paintings studied show the underdrawing on the priming, while one has the underdrawing directly on the ground. Priming with dry underdrawing on top also occurs in Raphael’s late paintings; see Rossi Manaresi 1990, pp. 129-130. 36 Jan Gossart, Adoration of the Kings, 1510-1515. Panel, 177.2 x 161.3 cm. London, National Gallery. See Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997c, p. 89, and New York 2010, pp. 71 and 86 (note 21), citing the additional example of Gossart’s St. Luke Drawing the Virgin, c. 1534. Panel, 230 x 205 cm. Prague, National Gallery. 37 Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a, p. 25, where it is mentioned that, when it could be determined, the underdrawings of early Netherlandish paintings were directly on the ground, as opposed to Gossart’s example. 38 Miedema 1973, vol. 1, pp. 254-257, regarding chapter XII 7f and XII 17f, and vol. 2, pp. 594 and 598. Miedema mentions that Van Mander was probably following Vasari when he spoke of painters who underdrew on top of the priming (or to use Vasari’s word, imprimitura), and regarded the technique of early Netherlandish painters as a curiosity. 39 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries, and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 108. 40 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 51, based in part on staining tests of this layer in a sample from Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25); this sample was restudied by FTIR by Marika Spring at the National Gallery, London. 41 Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a, pp. 23-24. 42 Although the evidence for pink primings is much more obvious in several of Scorel’s works from the later 1530s, at least three cross-sections from his Baptism (note 34) have priming layers tinted with red and orangish particles (AB sample nos. A 84/1, 2, and 5). It may eventually be shown that the Utrecht Lamentation (cat. no. 25) has a similar tinted layer.

data from Raphael’s early and late paintings suggests that this artist often followed a similar routine, with underdrawing on top of the pale yellow primings.35 It is also of note that a similar paint-layer structure, with underdrawing on the priming, has been documented in Jan Gossart’s important post-Italy painting, the Adoration of the Kings, as well as several other works by this artist.36 By using a priming layer as a surface for the underdrawing, Scorel (and Gossart) reversed the traditional northern fifteenth-century paint-layer structure in which the underdrawing was sealed off and covered over by the priming.37 In this, it is quite likely that Scorel was a pivotal figure in the history of technique in the early sixteenth-century Netherlands. Karel van Mander seems aware of this distinction. In two different places in Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const, he mentions that there were some who underdrew on the priming ‘op t’primuersel’, but that the early Netherlandish masters made their compositional layouts on the ground and then laid down a thin, fleshcoloured priming through which they could still see their underdrawings.38 The pigment in Scorel’s priming layer is lead white. In general, the overall layer is quite thin, averaging around 12 to 15 µm, but sometimes as thick as 30 µm or more, or as thin as 6 µm. It is often filled with large clumps of lead white that can even protrude through the top paint layers. These granules can frequently be seen in close-up inspection of the paint surface (figs. 4a-c). They also appear in X-ray in the white streaking caused by the broad brush applying the priming layer. Such clumps probably result from the Dutch ‘stack’ production process for lead white, as they have been found in works by other north Netherlandish painters.39 The extreme thinness of priming often precludes any analysis of medium, but that which has been done for Scorel suggests that the layer contains oil.40 Coloured or slightly tinted priming layers are not unusual, and some have also been found in the Scorel group.41 Although not as frequent as the white layer, greyish or pink primings do occur, the latter a mixture of white, black, and red particles. Although there are no definitive examples of pink primings in Scorel’s works in Utrecht’s collection, they appear for the first in paintings from Scorel’s Haarlem period (1527-1530).42 The Underdrawing The underdrawing is always a distinctive phase in Scorel’s paintings. Most can easily be imaged by means of infrared techniques, revealing that some are nothing short of spectacular (see, for instance, the underdrawing for the Lamentation, cat. no. 25, fig. 1). The bumpy and granular white priming was an ideal surface on which to draw, for it provided ‘tooth’ and allowed the artist to exploit the versatility of his drawing material. Somewhat friable as well as greasy, black chalk can easily be manipulated to produce lines of varying thickness and subtle gradations in tone. As Scorel freely sketched on the prepared surface, his underdrawn strokes often dragged and skipped over the ridges of the underlying priming, as is especially apparent in the Madonna with Wild Roses (see figs. 5a-c). His underdrawings usually have the character of a working sketch and often seem applied with some force. In the Lamentation, Scorel started to lay out the composition in the figure of the donor. He did this even before the priming layer was dry, since the extremely long, slashing contours of the drapery are deeply indented into the underlying layer, as is evident in raking light (see cat. no. 25, fig. 2). The term ‘black chalk’ is something of a misnomer, since the material is in actuality carbonaceous shale, not chalk; and chalk is white, not black. Various approaches must be taken to identify it. In infrared documents, lines made with this material will appear dry and gritty (as may those

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Fig. 4a Jan van Scorel, The Crucifixion Triptych, c. 1535. Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent. 1: 1 close-up showing lead white granules protruding through the paint layer Fig. 4b The same area in visible light Fig. 4c The same area in X-ray showing strokes of the priming layer going in different directions and concentrations of lead white particles

43 See the discussion of black chalk’s flake-like character and metallic sheen due to graphite in Kirby, Roy and Spring 2002, p. 34.

Fig. 5a Jan van Scorel, Madonna with Wild Roses, c. 1530. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Mary’s hand

44 See, for instance, the crosssection illustrated further in this article of John the Evangelist’s red robe in Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25).

Fig. 5b Mary’s hand in an X-ray, showing the streaking of the priming layer, including strokes going through the wrist

45 See Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 89 and fig. 27c, with reference to SEM done by Cathy Metzger, National Gallery, Washington, D.C. Arie Wallert, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, has obtained similar results for a sample from the De Visscher van der Gheer triptych (cat. no. 34). The elemental proportions are not similar enough to conform to a standard for black chalk.

Fig. 5c Mary’s hand in IRR, showing the freely sketched underdrawing in black chalk, which in the wrist skips over the ridges of the priming layer (IRR and digital composite: MolArt/ nwo)

46 Siejek and Kirsch 2004, pp. 60-65 and 103-116. 47 Thompson 1960, chapter XXXVII. 48 Rupprich 1956-1969, vol. 1 (1956), pp. 151, 157 and 164; see also Meder 1977, vol. 1, p. 87. 49 Vandamme 1974, pp. 101137. This treatise also refers to coolswert, perhaps charcoal or coal black. 50 These terms are found in Van Mander’s Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const: Miedema 1973, vol. 1, pp. 15-18. Potloykens may refer to graphite, which was used more towards the end of the sixteenth-century, and sme-kool is probably charcoal (for the latter, I am indebted to Hessel Miedema, oral communication, November 2004).

51 Faries and Wolff 1996 and Faries 2007, p. 108. 52 See note 7. Faries 1993, pp. 101-111. 53 Just as the use of liquid, brownish underdrawings may indicate the lingering influence of Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen’s workshop practices, so the departure from scribbled hatchings shows Scorel’s increasing independence. For more on this development, see Faries 2007, p. 108.

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also made by metalpoint and charcoal). If underdrawn lines happen to be visible to the eye, close-up photographs and photomicrographs can help in ascertaining the characteristics of the material, which frequently has a flake-like appearance and/or metallic sheen.43 In cross-sections, Scorel’s underdrawings tend to clump up, unlike a liquid ink, and do not exhibit the splintery particles characteristic of charcoal.44 Instrumental analysis using the scanning electron microscope provides additional information by identifying elemental components in the underdrawing. Carbon is of course present in those samples that have been studied, along with calcium, iron, silicon, potassium, and aluminum, in relatively the same proportions.45 These elements would be present in the quartz and clay that make up the material. Only very recently has it been possible to make similar instrumental identifications of black chalk in other samples, and to confirm its use in drawings on paper.46 One of the first historical references to this drawing material is Ceninno Ceninni’s Il libro dell’arte, where it is described as a ‘black stone’ (pietra negra) that was soft enough to sharpen with a knife.47 By the time of Scorel’s activity, written sources call the material a chalk. Albrecht Dürer refers to both charcoal (kohle) and black chalk (schwarcze kreuden) as the material he used for drawing portraits when he visited Antwerp in 1520.48 A painting treatise thought to have been written in Antwerp somewhat later in the sixteenth century has many references to blacks, including lamp black (lamp swert) and black chalk (swert creyt).49 Van Mander knew the material, too, since he mentions swarte krijkens (black chalck), although he also makes references to more indefinable potloykens and sme-kool swart.50 Scorel’s early paintings are the only exceptions to his use of black chalk for underdrawings. The underdrawing material in some of these works is clearly liquid, applied with either a brush, or possibly a pen; and it frequently becomes transparent at longer wavelengths in the infrared.51 In the middle panel of the Holy Kinship Altarpiece (1519), the fully worked-up underdrawing exhibits the same nervous, scribby lines and overlays of hatchings that typify Scorel’s master, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (figs. 6a-b).52 This type of hatching appears in only one of Scorel’s works done slightly later in Venice, for the artist otherwise dispenses entirely with these fussy details to concentrate on the main outlines of the forms. It is during this period that Scorel frees himself from the graphic idiom of his master.53 Although there are some earlier Netherlandish artists who used chalk as a sketching tool, they are unlikely to have provided Scorel with a direct source for his own methods. Hans

54 Faries 1997c, pp. 243-259. As Leeflang 2007, p. 88, shows, a similar phenomenon occurs in the works of Joos van Cleve. 55 For the so-called ‘woodcut look’ in early sixteenth-century Antwerp underdrawings, see Leeflang in Faries 2006a, pp. 15-42, and Leeflang 2007, pp. 60-71. See also, Filedt Kok 1978, p. 37. 56 For these aspects of Raphael’s drawings, see Clayton 1999, pp. 13-14 and p. 18. Additionally, this text often notes that black chalk functioned as an ‘underdrawing’ stage in drawings finished in the same or other media. 57 Ainsworth in Faries 2006a, pp. 99-118. Even though Van Orley used chalk more frequently in his underdrawings, it is usually in combination with other media.

Memling, Gerard David, and Geertgen tot Sint Jans are all known to have sketched with black chalk in their underdrawings, although usually in combination with a more detailed brush underdrawing that fixes the forms. It is worth noting as well that as Memling gradually systematized his workshop routine, he turned more and more to the exclusive use of black chalk for his freely-sketched compositional layouts; and this phenomenon can be documented in the works of other masters.54 Scorel seems to have escaped the influence of the volumetric underdrawings modeled on Dürer’s woodcuts which were endemic to the Antwerp retable ‘industry’ and also appeared in Leiden in the early paintings of Lucas van Leyden.55 For sinuous, flowing contours combined with regularized hatching, Scorel must have been impressed instead by the drawing techniques of Raphael and his shop assistants. Black chalk was often employed by these artists because of its breadth and ease of handling, especially in the large-scale cartoons associated with the Stanze and other commissions; and there was a ‘resurgence’ of this technique in Raphael’s studio towards the end of the 1510s.56 To some degree, Scorel has a counterpart in the south Netherlandish painter, Bernard van Orley. This artist also increasingly incorporated sketchy black chalk underdrawings into the preparatory stages of his paintings around c. 1520-1522, ostensibly under the influence of Tomasso Vincidor, who was one of Raphael’s assistants working in Brussels.57 Scorel’s underdrawings often show the signs of how they were made. Although research to date has not revealed axis lines aligning the compositions, as has been discovered in the works of Raphael, the artist frequently uses a straight edge to position forms, and occasionally even works out the full perspective of a scene in the underdrawing – layout methods that are both fairly standard practices.58 In his earliest dated work, Scorel relied on squaring in the underdrawing to transfer the design to the ground, a technique he most likely inherited from Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, and one that is not repeated in any of the artist’s paintings in the Centraal Museum.59 Nor has pouncing been detected in Scorel’s paintings, a method of compositional transfer that was already known in the Netherlands and one that also typifies the working procedure of many Italian artists, including Raphael.60 It is possible that traces of pouncing dots might have been erased, but if so, Scorel’s subsequent working out of the underdrawing is still remarkably free and spontaneous. Though colour notations are often found in underdrawings from this

58 Roy, Spring and Plazzotta 2004, p. 6. For a discussion of Scorel’s underdrawings as working drawings, see Faries 1975, pp. 97-105. 59 For squaring in Scorel’s Holy Kinship Altarpiece (note 7), see Faries 1975, pp. 102-103. Faries has also discovered a grid in Jacob’s Temptation of Christ, 1500-1525. Panel, 162 x 88.5 cm. Aachen, Suermondt Ludwig Museum, using IRR (11 November 1991). 60 As discussed, for instance, in Bambach 1999, pp. 57-69, 321-328.

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Fig. 6a Jan van Scorel, Holy Kinship Altarpiece, 1519. Obervellach, Pfarrkirche St. Martin. IR showing scribby underdrawn lines in the faces in the middle panel Fig. 6b Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, The Adoration of the Christ Child, 1512. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte. IRR showing scribby underdrawn lines in the faces of the donor’s family (IRR: MF; digital composite: Catharina van Dalen)

61 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 97. 62 See note 9. 63 Faries 1983, pp. 5‑12, and Faries 2007, especially p. 108 (note 20). 64 Titian underdrew nude legs under drapery in a study of the Vendramin Family; see Meijer 1981, p. 279 and plate 32. 65 For an illustration of Jan van Scorel’s Flagellation, c. 1527-1529. Panel, 130 x 48 cm. Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent, see Faries in Cassanelli 1998, p. 307, figs. 14-15. The overlapping of drapery folds on underlying contours also appears in some of Scorel’s drawings on paper. 66 Outlines for limbs, overlapped by drapery folds, also occur in the underdrawing of Jan van Scorel’s Finding of the True Cross Triptych, 1535-1540. Panel, 232 x 261.5 cm (middle panel), 232 x 125 cm (wings), Breda, Grote Kerk, in the figure of a man furthest to the right in the middle panel; see Faries 1975, p. 186, fig. 64a.

period, they occur only rarely in Scorel’s works.61 The word coper found in the layout of the exterior wings of the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22) is an exception; it may indicate that the form in the paint surface was to imitate a metal (brass or bronze) plaque (fig. 7). Some of Scorel’s underdrawing practices do, however, have stronger connections with Italy. In the Tobias and the Angel dated 1521, Scorel underdrew the figure of the angel unclothed and then added drapery in the paint stage (fig. 8a).62 Even though this underdrawing may be dependent on a drawing or print after an antique statue, such as the famous Apollo Belvedere, Scorel’s layout sketch still recalls Raphael’s methods and Alberti’s recommendation to draw figures unclothed. Lately, other examples of draped figures underdrawn nude have been discovered, suggesting that this practice was indeed more widespread in Italy.63 There are instances of this practice in Titian’s work that are strikingly similar to the long, undulating contours Scorel used to outline his figures.64 Scorel repeats this procedure in the Lokhorst Triptych (fig. 8b). Although the male figure just behind the kneeling woman in the middle panel does not wear bulky robes, Scorel nonetheless underdrew the outlines of his body without any clothing at all, and then added the shirt and drapery only in the paint stage. This method relates to Scorel’s general practice of drawing the outline of a torso, arm, or leg first, then going over it with shading and/or fold lines of drapery. There are many examples of this practice, including the underdrawing in the Flagellation of Christ, where the first lines of a tormentor’s torso run through Christ’s back, and a background detail from the same Crucifixion Triptych.65 Similar outlines of limbs under drapery can also be found in large-scale paintings (fig. 8c-d), giving us a good idea of these first placement lines for figures that are otherwise obscured when underdrawings are further worked out.66 Portraiture was a mainstay for Scorel from his earliest paintings to the end of his career. The method for layout that first appears in some of Scorel’s portraits done in Venice continues in the artist’s later works. Scorel restricts the underdrawing to assuredly drawn, schematic contours, and any foreshortenings in the face are already incorporated in the layout, suggesting that the artist was following separate drawings of his sitters. In the Centraal Museum’s collection, such features can be seen in the underdrawings of the portraits of pilgrims to Jerusalem (see cat. no. 21, fig. 2, cat. no. 26, figs. 1 and 2, and cat. no. 29, figs. 1 and 2). From the beginning, Scorel’s portraits are also life-sized. The Paint Layers Everything about the preceding stages in the painting process was calculated to facilitate quick and efficient production, and this applies to Scorel’s paint stage as well. Because of the quality of the oak support, it was possible to restrict the thickness of the ground and priming to a minimum. From the time of his first works in Utrecht, Scorel choose a material and drawing method that would allow the greatest possible streamlining of the layout stage. In addition, paint is laid directly on top of the underdrawing in this paint-layer sequence.

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Fig. 7 Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. IRR revealing the word ‘coper’ in the left exterior wing (IRR: MF)

Fig. 8a Jan van Scorel, Tobias and the Angel, 1521. Düsseldorf, Kunstmuseum. IRR of the angel underdrawn unclothed (IRR: © Prof. Dr. J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer/Stichting RKD; digital composite: MF)

Fig. 8b Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. IRR of a figure underdrawn as nude (IRR and digital composite: MolArt/nwo)

67 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 52; Faries in The Dictionary of Art 1996, p. 218. 68 Specifically, Lucas van Leyden’s Last Judgment, 1527. Panel, 301 x 435 cm (open with frame). Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal; see Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 109. 69 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 108. 70 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 108; for black shading in Heemskerck, as well as other artists, see Faries 1995 and Faries 2003, p. 11. 71 Faries 2003, pp. 10-11. Only in Scorel’s early Holy Kinship Altarpiece (note 7) is green undermodeled with a grey layer (AB sample no. A 123/1). 72 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 52. Four of Scorel’s paintings in the Centraal Museum’s collection have been tested by AB for medium, the Lokhorst

Triptych (cat. no. 22), the Lamentation (cat. no. 25), the Lamentation with Members of the Van Egmond Family (cat. no. 33), and Five Members of the Utrecht Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims (cat. no. 29), and all showed the presence of oil. To date, no medium analysis has been performed by more advanced instrumental techniques.

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Fig. 8c Jan van Scorel, Polyptych with SS. Stephen and James the Great, c. 1540. Douai, Museé de la Chartreuse. IRR of the innermost left wing showing the underdrawn contour of a leg overlapped by drapery folds (IRR: © Prof. Dr. M. Faries/Stichting RKD; digital composite: MF)

Fig. 8d Jan van Scorel, Polyptych with SS. Stephen and James the Great, c. 1540. Douai, Museé de la Chartreuse. IR of the innermost left wing showing the underdrawn contour of a leg overlapped by drapery folds

While similar in many respects to that of his contemporaries, the structure of Scorel’s painting stage also exhibits significant differences. The paint is laid on thinly: it is usually only two to three times the thickness of the priming layer, or around 50 µm (0.05 mm), and the build-up is quite simple.67 Cross-sections showing more than two layers are infrequent. Underpainting is rare, except in reds, as most colours are achieved through mixture rather than by superimposition of layers, features of technique that are comparable to what has been found in works by Lucas van Leyden.68 It is possible that the white priming layer took over one of the functions of underpainting in Scorel’s works, for its reflective brightness would have maintained the luminosity and clarity of the overlying colours. Scorel’s compressed paint-layer structure may be linked with what is seen as a general simplication in technique over that of the fifteenth century, but there are still many options for nuanced mixtures and modeling that can vary from shop to shop.69 There is no definitive evidence, for instance, that Scorel shaded by adding black to his colours, as has been found in the early Heemskerck, and in works by later sixteenth-century artists such as Aertgen van Leyden and Pieter Aertsen.70 Nor is there any indication that Scorel relied on underlying black or greyish layers to darken or undermodel a colour such as blue, a technique occurring in works by Geertgen tot Sint Jans as well as several early sixteenth-century southern Netherlandish masters such as Jan Gossart.71 Scorel’s use of a rose layer under blue, on the other hand, is exceptional. The staining tests that have been done so far confirm that the medium of Scorel’s paint is oil, as would be expected.72

3

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1

73 For an excellent introduction to early European pigments, their preparation and use, see London 1989, pp. 30-43; many of these same pigments in Netherlandish painting are discussed in Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a, pp. 34-40. 74 As also found in a study of the London National Gallery’s collection of early Netherlandish paintings, see Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a, p. 34. 75 AB has also tentatively identified blue verditer, an artificial azurite, in a few of Scorel’s works on the basis of its optical qualities (see Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 109); the pigment may have been used in less important sections of paintings, such as an outer wing of the Marchiennes SS. Stephen and James polyptych and the robes of donors on the outer shutters of The Lochorst Triptych (cat. no. 22); Jan van Scorel, Polyptych with SS. Stephen and James the Great, c. 1540. Panel, 219 x 151 cm (middle panel), 234 x 73/83 cm (four wings). Douai, Museé de la Chartreuse. 76 Faries 2003, p. 10; see also the discussion of ultramarine blue in Jan van Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25). 77 Smalt was identified in the Landscape with Bathsheba (cat. no. 28) by AB on the basis of its optical appearance in cross-

Fig. 9 Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Cross-section from Christ’s purple robe in the middle panel showing 3) wet-in-wet application of larger blue particles over 2) a layer with blue, white, and more red lake on top of 1) white priming layer 500 x 0n 35 mm film

sections (sample nos. A 97/2, 7 and 9); see Faries 1987, pp. 94-96. 78 Smalt was identified in the Raising of Lazarus by AB on the basis of its optical appearance in cross-sections (sample nos. A 34/1, 2, 3, and 9), see van Asperen de Boer 1977, pp. 53-54. 79 As in the garment of St. Hubert in Jan van Scorel’s, Finding of the True Cross Triptych (note 66) (AB sample no. A 14/19).

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The pigments found in Scorel’s paintings, with only one major exception, conform to those generally used in the Netherlands. In fact, the range of pigments available at this time was fairly limited and, for the most part, would have been similar in both northern and southern Europe.73 In the Scorel group, azurite is the most commonly used pigment for blues.74 It is also prevalent in mixtures: occasionally for greys, frequently to darken greens, and always as an admixture along with red and white for purples. There is little evidence for other blues, except smalt and natural ultramarine.75 Smalt, a cobalt blue pigment, appears only a few times in Scorel’s paintings, but, when combined with the results of other technical studies, these occurrences are critical for the history of this pigment in the north Netherlands and its more frequent appearance there after the late 1530s.76 It occurs, for instance, in Scorel’s Landscape with Bathsheba, which may be dated to the early 1540s (cat. no. 28).77 The identification of smalt in the Raising of Lazarus in the Centraal Museum helps confirm this observation, for dendrochronology suggests an earliest possible date for the panel’s use as 1543 (cat. no. 35).78 For dark blue using azurite, such as that in the drapery just to the right of Peter’s head in the middle panel of the Lokhorst Triptych, the crystals are densely packed, and in this case, also mixed with some red. Scorel’s purples usually include this pigment in one-layered mixtures, although that in Christ’s robe in the Lokhorst Triptych has more red lake particles concentrating near the bottom of the layer (fig. 9). Because there is no clear demarcation between layers, the strokes of paint may have been blended together, wet in wet. In contrast to fifteenth-century painting, there are only a very few instances in the Scorel group where a reddish glaze has been superimposed on a violet or blue underpainting to create purple. One of those was to create a special effect, that of a deep, red-purple velvet.79 Scorel used vermilion, the bright red-orange pigment, only sparingly. As a solid, saturated colour, it is usually mixed with red lake particles in a single, opaque layer. It also occurs in pinks, mixed with white and some black particles, for both flesh areas and occasional pink primings. The other basic red in Scorel’s works is a red lake, a colour based on an organic dyestuff. It was customary at this time to precipitate the pigment from one

6 5 3

4 2

1

5

3

4

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Fig. 10a Jan van Scorel, Lamentation of Christ with a Donor, c. 1535. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Detail of John the Evangelist’s red robe. Fig. 10b Cross-section showing from the bottom up: 1) ground, 2) traces of white priming, 3) black chalk underdrawing, 4) light rose layer with red lake particles in a white matrix, 5) a white highlight layer, 6) transparent red glaze 500 x on 35 mm film Fig. 10c Cross-section showing from the ground up: 1) ground, 2) white priming layer, 3) layer with more red lake, a few red-orange particles, and less white, 4) red glaze, and 5) loose varnish layer with possible retouching 500 x on 35 mm film 80 See note 74, and Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a and 1997c, pp. 37-38 and 94. 81 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 52. 82 Campbell, Foister and 1997a, p. 39. 83 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 109; for the original identification, see Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 54.

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of two sources: either the madder plant or the kermes scale insect. The latter red lake becomes more common in the early sixteenth century and is thought to be the source of some red’s in Jan Gossart’s works.80 In Scorel’s paintings, the reds exhibit a traditional build-up, with a glaze over one or more layers of underpainting. Samples taken from John the Evangelist’s robe on the left side of Scorel’s large Lamentation in the Centraal Museum (cat. no. 25) illustrate this painting technique (figs. 10a-c). The depth of colour is actually modulated beneath the red glaze in the underpainting layer(s), with either less or more red lake particles in the white matrix. The lighter red even shows a white highlight just under the glaze on the red mid-tone. The complexity of the reds in the Lamentation contrasts sharply with some examples in Scorel’s later SS. Stephen and James polyptych for Marchiennes, where the red glaze is sometimes painted directly on the priming layer.81 There is not that much difference in the size of these works, but the Marchiennes commission was a greater ensemble made, in a sense, ‘for export’, and with more participation of the shop. The Lamentation (cat. no. 25) demanded more of Scorel’s undivided attention, and that is reflected in the more complicated build-up of paint. The majority of greens in the Scorel group would have been based on the material in most widespread use, verdigris, a copper salt. Once again, the paint-layer structure for this colour is usually quite simple, although some green glazes do appear. In the exterior wings of the Lokhorst Triptych, along the edge of John the Evangelist’s shoulder just above his goblet, strokes of the transparent green glaze of his mantle splashed over onto the colour of the background when the paint was applied (fig. 11). Resin has sometimes been found added to such glazes, according to technical analyses carried out at the London National Gallery, but we do not yet have confirmation of this practice in the Scorel group.82 To characterize greens fully, instrumental analysis is required, such as Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. One other green in Scorel’s works was verified by the latter method: a copper sulfate, possibly synthetic, that is similar in composition to the mineral posnjakite. Around the time this pigment was identified in Scorel’s works, it was also discovered in Lucas van Leyden’s Last Judgment altarpiece.83 Even more occurrences have been

reported since, suggesting that the pigment was more common than formerly thought.84 A few other greens have been suggested for Scorel’s paintings on the basis of visual microscopy alone.85 Greens are often darkened by the addition of azurite, but to date, there is little evidence in the Scorel group for mixtures of blue and yellow to create green, although

84 See for an overview of these instances, Faries 2003, pp. 6-7. 85 Green verditer and malachite have been suggested; see Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 54. 86 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 52; and for a more recent discussion, see Higgitt, Spring and Saunders 2003, pp. 75-91. 87 For realgar and the related pigment orpiment, both of which have been identified in a painting by Maarten van Heemskerck, see Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 91. The possible occurrences in Utrecht paintings, the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22) and the Lamentation (cat. no. 25) (AB sample numbers A 28/3, 31 and A 26/13), require further analysis. 88 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 109; Faries 1987 and Faries 2003, pp. 9-10.

Fig. 11 Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Photomicrograph showing splashes of green glaze. 3 x on 35 mm film Fig. 12 Jan van Scorel, Lamentation of Christ with a Donor, c. 1535. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Photomicrograph showing translucent inclusions in lead-tin yellow paint, 9 x on 35 mm film

89 For ultramarine blue in Gossart’s works, see New York 2010, p. 81; it can also be expected in some works by Quentin Massys and Joos van Cleve. 90 See note 9. 91 See note 34, Jan van Scorel, Mary Magdalene, c. 1530. Panel, 66.3 x 76 cm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. For discussion of the ultramarine blue in these paintings, see Faries 1987, pp. 90-94.

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this has been found in Utrecht’s collection in the De Visscher van der Gheer triptych (cat. no. 34). The yellow pigment, lead-tin yellow, most likely occurs throughout Scorel’s works; its presence is suggested by the transparent inclusions that are typically seen in paint of this colour when studied microscopically (fig. 12). In recent years, such inclusions have been interpreted as metal soaps formed by the reaction of the pigment with the oil medium.86 The orangish pigment, realgar, is a possibility for Scorel, but, as yet, its use remains speculative.87 Little sampling was done for other yellows, such as ochres, or browns and blacks. As far as we now know, Jan van Scorel was the only sixteenth-century north Netherlandish painter to have used natural ultramarine blue in his works.88 This pigment, which is obtained from the semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, was prohibitively expensive. As we learn from Dürer’s writings, it was available in Antwerp, but it cost as much as gold. Although it is known to occur in the works of Jan Gossart, the overall extent to which natural ultramarine might have been used in contemporary south Netherlandish painting has not yet been determined.89 Obviously, its occurrence in the north Netherlands was exceptional. Since Scorel first used ultramarine in the 1521 Tobias and the angel, a painting he most likely executed in Venice, it stands to reason that the artist brought back a supply of this pigment from this city, which was one of the main ports importing the mineral from Afghanistan.90 He then used this costly blue after he returned north, but only very selectively: it occurs in the Rijksmuseum’s Mary Magdalene, the Baptism of Christ in Haarlem and the Lamentation in the Centraal Museum’s collection (cat. no. 25).91 The pigment accounts for the striking purplish-blue in a large expanse of drapery (the Virgin’s robe) in the Lamentation. In the Baptism and the Mary Magdalene, Scorel also used ultramarine for other areas, including the hazy, powdery-blue mountains in the background landscapes. We must assume Scorel’s supply of the pigment did not last into the 1540s, since the artist was forced to use

4 3 2 1

92 See Faries 1987, pp. 90-96. See also the discussion of Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25). 93 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 109. 94 See note 91. These instances were first published by Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 53; see also Faries 1987, pp. 90-92. 95 Campbell, Foister and Roy 1997a, p. 34, and it differs from fifteenth-century purples, p. 37. 96 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, p. 53. 97 This applies both to the early and late Raphael, see Roy, Spring and Plazzotta 2004, p. 9, 14, and 16, and Rossi Manaresi 1990, p. 130 and plates 149-150. 98 For instance, Titian (where blue over rose also appears), see Lucas and Plesters 1978, pp. 40 and 46, plates 6c-d; and Cima, see Dunkerton and Roy 1986, pp. 10 and 19. Ultramarine blue in the landscape background has also been noted in another of Titian’s works, see Birkmaier, Wallert and Rothe 1995, p. 122. 99 Van Asperen de Boer 1977, pp. 53-54.

a substitute, blue smalt, when painting the Landscape with Bathsheba (cat. no. 28).92 From this date onwards, smalt also increasingly substituted for azurite blues.93 In the Lamentation, a rose colour clearly shimmers through the precious ultramarine blue giving the Virgin’s robe a violet cast (figs. 13a-c); and paint samples confirm that Scorel applied the blue over a rose underpainting. The artist repeated this paint-layer structure in the distant mountains in his Haarlem Baptism.94 This superimposition of colours contrasts with earlier fifteenth-century practice in the Netherlands, where ultramarine blue was usually painted over underlayers of the cheaper pigment, azurite.95 There are, however, decided parallels with Italian painting technique. By the time of the 1977 Scorel exhibition in Utrecht, it was known that a blue-on-rose layer structure occurred in the works of a number of Italian painters, including Botticelli, Mocetto, and Folgolino.96 Although azurite underpaintings are also known to occur under ultramarine blues in Italian works, the blue-on-rose variation must also have been fairly widespread practice in Italy, because it has since been discovered in the works of still more painters, notably Raphael.97 In Italian works, ultramarine can often be found throughout the painting, including skies and background landscapes, something that Scorel was only able to duplicate in part.98 The blue-over-rose colour effect is not restricted just to ultramarine in Scorel’s works: it plays a wider role in other blues and purples, colours often painted wet in wet, such as Christ’s drapery in the Lokhorst Triptych mentioned above.99 These inter-related aspects of Scorel’s technique underscore how extensively Scorel’s Italian experience influenced the overall palette of his post-Italy paintings. Studying Scorel’s paintings close-up or with the stereomicroscope is a revelation. Not only can the condition of a work be better understood, but one can also make tentative identifications of pigments, specify colours in mixtures, and recognize the idiosyncracies of an artist’s handling of paint.

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Fig. 13a Jan van Scorel, Lamentation of Christ with a Donor, c. 1535. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Detail of the Virgin’s purplish-blue robe. Fig. 13b Cross-section taken from the Virgin’s robe, showing from the bottom up: 1) white priming layer, 2) underdrawing, 3) rose underpainting with red lake particles in a white matrix, and 4) a layer with darker and lighter natural ultramarine particles in a white matrix 500 x on 35 mm film Fig. 13c Photomicrograph showing the rose underlayer 4.5 x on 35 mm film

100 Friedländer 1967-1976, vol. 12 (1975), p. 84. 101 See note 8. 102 Compare the hair in Scorel’s Madonna with Wild Roses, cat. no. 24 with that in two workshop replicas, Madonna and Child. Panel, 44 x 37 cm. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, and Madonna with Daffodils and Two Donors. Panel, 55.5 x 76.2 cm. Madrid, Museo ThyssenBornemisza.

Fig. 14 Jan van Scorel, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1519. Chicago, Art Institute. Detail of background figures

103 Paint sample AB A 28/8. 104 Paint sample AB A 26/13. 105 Another good example of scumbling can be seen in the exterior wings of the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22): Herman van Lokhorst’s red-orange vestment has been modeled with white and grey highlights that have been dragged over the underlayer to create a gauze-like effect. 106 Fingerprints and blottings appear in Netherlandish painting from Jan van Eyck on; see, for instance, Dunkerton 2000, pp. 287-292.

107 This relates to the criticism of Scorel, Lucas van Leyden, and others, that the highlights were too sharply cut off made by Karel van Mander; see for further discussion, Filedt Kok 1978, p. 147.

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To the great connoisseur of Netherlandish painting, Max J. Friedländer, Scorel’s vision was that of a true painter, and he remarked, ‘His tints are imbued with a bright luminosity … [they] remain moist and fluid in effect’.100 Such effects can be seen from Scorel’s earliest paintings on. In a close-up detail from Scorel’s early Adoration of the Magi in Chicago, c. 1519, the application of the highlights gives a silvery sheen to the figures (fig. 14).101 In later works, highlights of white and lead-tin yellow regularly convey the play of light, as seen, for instance, in the impasted concentrations of pigment in the masonry lit by the blazing sun in Scorel’s luminous city of Jerusalem in the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22, fig. 4), or in the globules of yellow paint that suggest reflections on metallic surfaces, such as the golden chains worn by the members of Utrecht’s Jerusalem brotherhood (cat. no. 21, fig. 3). When such highlights appear in hair, the locks shine like silken ribbons. It is interesting to observe that when such details were repeated in shop replicas, Scorel’s assistants were unable to recreate the same effect (figs. 15a-c).102 Occasionally, Scorel develops more complicated colouristic effects, as in areas of shot colour. In the exterior wings of the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22), John the Evangelist stands next to the golden, violet-tinged light emanating from the heavenly figures, and his robe is a fluorescent orangish-brown shot with green highlights. The light green strokes were not juxtaposed with the brown but were applied on top of the underlying orange-brown layer, as confirmed by close-up study as well as a cross-section.103 One of the Mary’s in Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25) stands just above the Virgin and clasps her hands; her arms and shoulders are wrapped with a yellow robe that is shaded with purplish-brown. The artist was striving for a complex effect here, for highlights in lead-tin yellow are applied over an underlying orange-yellow layer, and they are in turn modeled with a ‘wash’ of red and blue crystals.104 White highlights that are ‘scumbled’ on, in other words, lightly applied to allow the darker underlayer to show through, appear in the green foliage of the same painting.105 The white touches seem to be blotted in one area, either with a fabric or perhaps with a finger, a practice that now appears to be quite common (fig. 16).106 In the Lokhorst Triptych (cat. no. 22), there is much more variety in the green foliage. Three different colours appear in the leaves of the tree behind St. Anthony Abbot in the inner left wing: light blue, light green, and a light yellow-green over a dark, transparent green (figs. 17a-b). Blue highlights in foliage do not appear here for the first time, since they can also be seen in Scorel’s earliest works. Overall, Scorel applies his paint smoothly, in broad planes of colour. Sometimes the artist adds a thin surface film of paint to modulate volume more fully by suggesting backlighting; this more direct manner of painting can be observed in a well-preserved work such as the Lamentation in Utrecht (cat. no. 25). The back-lit areas occur in shadows, not highlights, and are particularly noticeable in faces.107 The characteristics of the artist’s smooth, blended paint can perhaps best be sensed by comparing one of Scorel’s portraits with one by his Amsterdam master, Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (figs. 18a-b). Jacob Cornelisz is known for his graphic manner:

he literally draws with paint.108 Scorel, on the other hand, emphasizes the smooth transition of tone across the surface planes of the face. Jan van Scorel often made changes as he painted. Remarkably, one of these is still visible to the unaided eye in the artist’s Lamentation. Just under the cross, Joseph of Arimathea’s head was first delimited in profile view, and this shape can still be seen to the left of the head (cat. no. 25, figs. 6a-b). In the finalized form, the head is foreshortened, looking down to the figure of Christ. Jan van Scorel and his Workshop

108 For the elucidation of this aspect of Jacob Cornelisz’s technique, see Meuwissen in Faries 2006a, pp. 55-81. 109 Van Mander 1604, fol. 236r. 110 Van Mander 1604, fols. 245r and 230v. 111 See Faries 1975, pp. 90-91. 112 For these estimates, see Martens and Peeters in Faries 2006a, pp. 211-222. 113 See Faries 2003, p. 31, for an overview of this issue, with references to earlier literature.

Artists’ workshops varied in size: most were small, one-person enterprises while some could be much larger. Van Mander’s account of Scorel’s life implies that the artist expanded his shop during his stay in Haarlem from 1527-1530, when ‘seeing that he had many callers and he was often asked to take in pupils, Scorel rented a house in Haarlem’.109 Yet Van Mander speaks of only two ‘pupils’, Maarten van Heemskerck, who should more correctly be regarded as an assistant since he had had training with several other masters before joining Scorel’s shop, and Anthonis Mor.110 Even if Utrecht’s guild records had survived listing other possible apprentices, it is unlikely that Scorel’s name would have appeared since, as a cleric, he was exempt from guild regulations.111 Nonetheless, technical investigation reveals that Scorel must have had collaborators, since other ‘hands’ have been revealed in the execution of large altarpieces and shop replicas. As the research shows, these assistants had enough training to be able to participate in both the underdrawing and paint stages. Recent study also makes it plausible that an artist like Lambert Sustris had contact with Scorel’s shop before going on to Italy, and Scorel’s son, Pieter, must have trained with his father. When compared with estimates of shop size in Antwerp, Scorel’s was larger than average, but still considerably smaller than the largest shops in that city, those with five or more registered apprentices, which were quite rare. If we assume a minimum of two apprentices, Scorel’s son and Anthonis Mor, this size shop was attained by only around 10% of Antwerp’s master painters.112 Underdrawings in paintings by Scorel and his shop exhibit differences in approach as well as style, factors that can relate both to the function of the underdrawing and the extent of collaboration. Many paintings are freely sketched, giving the impression that the design is being worked out on the ground of the panel. These works can often be attributed to Scorel himself, especially when the creative process continues into the paint stage with many changes and revisions of form. Scorel’s Lamentation is an excellent example of such a process (cat. no. 25, figs. 1, 3a-b and 6a-b). More schematic forms of layout also appear in Scorel’s works. The systematization of the underdrawing did not occur as soon as Scorel returned from Italy: it is noted for the first time in paintings from Scorel’s Haarlem period, when we can assume the artist was expanding shop activities and standardizing his workshop routine. A more diagrammatic underdrawing evolved, with more regularized hatching and stronger demarcations of compositional elements.113 The underdrawing in the Lamentation with Members of the Van Egmond Family exemplifies this kind of underdrawing (see cat. no. 33, fig. 1). It is conceivable that some skilled shop assistants could have learned to make underdrawings of this type. Although this is unlikely for the layout of the Egmond Lamentation, the paint stage can still be attributed to a member of Scorel’s shop. Other underdrawings are still more methodical and take various forms: a schematic array of loose,

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Fig. 15a Jan van Scorel, Madonna with Wild Roses, c. 1530. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. The Christ child’s hair Fig. 15b Jan van Scorel (workshop), Madonna and Child, c. 1530. Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. The Christ child’s hair Fig. 15c Jan van Scorel and workshop, Madonna and Child, c. 1530. Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. The Christ child’s hair

Fig. 16 Jan van Scorel, Lamentation of Christ with a Donor, c. 1535. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Photomicrograph showing white highlight scumbles in green foliage, 3x on 35 mm film

114 As discussed in Utrecht 2000a, p. 10. 115 In Scorel’s shop, the lines are more often drawn in an unhesitating way, suggesting that they have gone over, or reinforced, the actual lines of the transfer. 116 See notes 66 and 75, and for further discussion Faries 1975. 117 See for further discussion of this phenomenon, Faries 2003, p. 31, and Faries 2006a, pp. 6-7. 118 Faries 1975, pp. 161-176. 119 See Faries 2003, p. 32, as well as the discussion of Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25). 120 For further discussion of this point, see cat. nos. 11 and 25. 121 See note 7. 122 Van Mander 1604, fol. 235v.

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placement lines; a rigid, block-like configuration suggesting volumes; or exacting contour lines.114 Since underdrawings consisting solely of outlines often occur in shop replicas, they may reflect the transfer of a design or cartoon to the ground of the panel, an activity that could be entrusted to shop assistants.115 This may be the case with the middle panel of the De Visscher van der Gheer triptych, a composition supposedly based on a model from Scorel’s shop (cat. no. 34, fig. 4). It must be pointed out that the underdrawing type cannot automatically be used as a criterion for attribution. A master or an assistant can draw in any mode, as Scorel does, for instance, when using strict contour underdrawing for the portraits of pilgrims to Jerusalem. Conversely, the Adoration of the Magi (cat. no. 30), executed almost entirely by one of Scorel’s assistants, is underdrawn in a sketchy manner. The monumental altarpieces Scorel’s shop produced around 1535-1540 for the Grote Kerk in Breda and the Benedictine abbey of Marchiennes in northern France were underdrawn in two completely different ways: one is freely sketched while the other is laid out with exacting contours.116 Scorel was working with assistants in both, and the production method must have been adapted to the different circumstances of each commission, a phenomenon that has been documented in the works of other Netherlandish masters.117 To say that the master designs – or underdraws – and the shop assistants carry out the painted execution grossly oversimplifies the actual situation in Scorel’s workshop. Collaboration can occur in any stage of the painting process, the underdrawing as well as the paint stage, and even in preparatory drawings on paper. Collaboration can be either juxtaposed or superimposed in one and the same work. In the Lamentation with Egmond’s mentioned above (cat. no. 33), a studio assistant finished off the painting based on Scorel’s layout sketch, while in the Adoration of the Magi (cat. no. 30), Scorel may have executed details in the paint surface of a work that can otherwise be considered a shop product. In addition, as has been found in the Scorel group, entire panels can be given over to a studio associate. The latter practice has made it possible to identify one of Scorel’s assistants, the Master of the Good Samaritan (see Master of the Good Samaritan biography and cat. no. 10). This artist worked in Scorel’s shop from around 1537 on and has a small core oeuvre of two paintings and two drawings, along with a few additional attributions.118 A division of labor that makes assistants responsible for entire paintings or separate panels in an altarpiece may be easier to discern in the sixteenth century, and other identifications can be expected in ongoing studies of workshop practice. For these same reasons, technical investigations have also helped define the interaction of Scorel with his former Haarlem assistant, Maarten van Heemskerck.119 We can assume that Jan van Scorel, like other masters, made designs for paintings on paper and assembled these and other items for use as workshop models. Technical study, particularly infrared reflectography, can often verify the existence of such models and provide clues about their use. In addition, these initial design stages often reveal Scorel’s sources in a more overt manner.120 Scorel must have made preparatory drawings from the very beginning of his career, for the squaring discovered in the 1519 Holy Kinship Altarpiece in Obervellach already implies compositional transfer from a drawing on paper to the ground of the panel.121 Karel van Mander also makes specific mention of some of Scorel’s model drawings. One was a portrayal of the city of Jerusalem that Van Mander says Scorel used for the background of the Lokhorst Triptych.122 The infrared details documenting this part of the painting show only a few lines marking out

the general position of the main buildings (see cat. no. 22, fig. 6b), proving that Scorel must have referred to an outside model both for the underdrawing and subsequent execution of the city in paint. This image of Jerusalem was a workshop model, for a similar vista of the city appears in the underdrawing of the artist’s later Stoning of Stephen, even though the

119 See Faries 2003, p. 32, as well as the discussion of Scorel’s Lamentation (cat. no. 25). 120 For further discussion of this point, see cat. nos. 11 and 25.

Fig. 17a-b Jan van Scorel, The Lokhorst Triptych, c. 1526. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Close-up of the foliage

121 See note 7. 122 Van Mander 1604, fol. 235v. 123 See note 75. Faries 1975, pp. 138-140, and Faries 1998, p. 128. This model must have been used again for Herman van Borculo’s woodcut of Jerusalem (see the discussion in cat. no. 22). 124 Van Mander 1604, fol. 235r. 125 Cornelis Bos after Jan van Scorel, The Israelites Carrying the Ark Across the Jordan, 1547. Engraving, 780 x 1100 mm. Jan van Scorel, David and Goliath, c. 1538. Panel, 108.5 x 155.5 cm. Dresden, Gemäldegalerie. 126 Faries and Bonadies 1998, pp. 77-78. 127 Jan van Scorel, Madonna and Child, c. 1527-1530. Panel, 66 x 44 cm. Tambov, Kartinaja Galeria. 128 See note 7, and Utrecht 2000a, appendix, pp. 4-6. 129 See Utrecht 2000a, pp. 17-19.

130 This phenomenon, the survival of workshop models from the master’s shop in works by the presumably younger generation of studio assistants, has been documented in technical studies of other Netherlandish painters; see for examples, Faries 2003, pp. 22 and 31.

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buildings have been changed completely in the paint surface.123 Another drawing that served as a model for a landscape was the pen sketch Van Mander said the artist incorporated into his painting of the children of Israel crossing the Jordan River.124 A print (1547) survives of this subject along with another work that has a similar landscape background, the painting of David and Goliath in Dresden.125 Since the underdrawing in the landscape – not the paint surface – matches the print exactly, both must go back to a common workshop model.126 Scorel’s Raising of Lazarus composition confirms this practice. The print of this subject does not follow the finished surface of the painting, but is instead identical to the underdrawing, once again implying the existence of a shop model (see cat. no. 35). In these cases, there was a basic template that could be developed further as required, into either a painting or a print. Jan van Scorel’s Madonna’s provide us with not only more examples of models, but also instances of their survival from one workshop to another. In the Madonna and Child (cat. no. 23), Scorel changed the position of the child’s standing leg; the underdrawn leg is quite different, showing the entire foot in a more frontal view. In combination with the higher, bent leg, the underdrawn posture is almost identical to Christ’s legs in the artist’s Tambov Madonna, although in reverse (figs. 19-20).127 The positions are too close for one not to derive from the other, or from a common model. In turn, the finished figures of Mary and Christ in the Utrecht painting provided the direct model for a Holy Kinship scene painted by an entirely different master and dated as late as c. 1550.128 In Scorel’s Madonna with Wild Roses, the underlying pose of the Christ child was not followed in the paint stage (see cat. no. 24, fig. 5). It is not the surface form but the underlying pose that reappears in several works by Scorel’s former studio assistant, Maarten van Heemskerck. Heemskerck must have become acquainted with the motif when he worked in Scorel’s shop in Haarlem, and he then repeated it several times before leaving for Italy in 1532.129 Heemskerck is known to have reused models from Scorel’s workshop on more than one occasion (see also cat. no. 25).130 There is still more evidence of systematization in Scorel’s shop. One clear example is the serial production that can be dated to the period when

Fig. 18 Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, The Adoration of the Christ Child, 1512. Naples, Museo di Capodimonte. The female donor’s face

131 See Leeflang 2007, p. 153. 132 See notes 7 and 59. 133 For the Dresden painting, see note 125. Master of the Good Samaritan, David and Goliath, 1538. Panel, 52 x 38.5 cm. Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum. 134 For the David and Goliath compositions, see Faries 1975, pp. 165-171.

Scorel organized a larger shop in Haarlem. At this time Scorel developed and repeated a repertory of standard subjects, such as the Crucifixion, the Adoration of the Magi, and the Madonna and Child. The serialization of Madonna’s is not an innovation on Scorel’s part, for repetitions of this subject were already common by the late fifteenth century, both in the southern Netherlands and Italy. Scorel’s series of Madonna and Child paintings is by no means on the scale of a contemporary Antwerp master such as Joos van Cleve, whose serial production accounts for more than 30% of his entire oeuvre.131 Nor does Scorel produce shop replicas all of the same size, as was more common in Antwerp and Bruges. Instead, the artist seems to have used a system of proportional reduction in those works that derive from the original. This would imply a method such as squaring, which Scorel employed as early as the Holy Kinship Altarpiece (1519).132 Since the actual squaring lines were not revealed in any of the Madonna’s underdrawings, squaring may have been used to create the slightly downsized designs or models for the paintings produced in series. Scorel must also have applied a system of proportional reduction for compositional variants the shop put out somewhat later, such as the paintings of David and Goliath in Dresden and Bonn.133 The Dresden painting is underdrawn and painted by Jan van Scorel, while the variant in Bonn is by an assistant. The latter artist maintains the relative proportions of the Dresden panel, even while reducing its size and changing the format from horizontal to vertical, and downscaling the main figures by half. There are a few minor modifications in the main figures in the Bonn panel, such as the shortening of Goliath’s legs, but the figures in the two paintings are otherwise such exact duplicates that some mechanical means of reproduction must have been employed.134 Just as technical studies have provided evidence that Scorel’s working procedure included the use of shop models and that these models could be resized and reused, infrared reflectography has contributed critical information about the relationship of underdrawings to extant drawings on paper and the further systematization of the design stage in Scorel’s

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Fig. 19 Jan van Scorel, Twelve Members of the Utrecht Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims, c. 1525. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. Detail of a pilgrim

135 For these drawings, see Faries 1975, pp. 154-61, 171-76; and Amsterdam 1986, cat. nos. 110-114, pp. 230-234. 136 Robinson and Wolff 1986, p. 34. 137 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 114. 138 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, p. 111. 139 This has been proposed, in particular, for Jan van Scorel’s Stoning of Stephen, c. 1540. Pen in brown ink with grey wash, 229 x 204 mm. Paris, Fondation Custodia (Collection F. Lugt), and a drawing for stained glass with the Adoration of Shepherds and the Adoration of Kings, c. 1540. Pen in brown ink with gray wash, 285 x 425 mm. Utrecht, HUA, the latter of which remained in the family of the donor for some time; see Faries 1975, pp. 158-159. 140 Faries 1998, pp. 77-78. 141 Van Mander 1604, fol. 234v.

works. This concerns a number of washed drawings – eighteen in total, all datable to the years around Scorel’s commissions for monumental altarpieces, c. 1535-1540. Because the drawings are all compositional studies, they had formerly been considered copy drawings after finished paintings. But infrared reflectography was able to demonstrate conclusively that the wash sketches correspond to underdrawings, proving that the drawings had to belong to the design stage of Scorel’s painting process.135 They complement the underdrawing, in fact, by showing the overall illumination and position of shadows in two tones of grey washes. Although no such drawings appear earlier in Scorel’s career, it cannot be excluded that this type of drawing first emerged when the artist standardized his shop routine in Haarlem, 1527-1530. The regularization of zones of shade in the underdrawing would parallel the closer definition of light and shadow in the preparatory studies. Drawings done in this technique were known earlier in the north; in the 1520s, for instance, washed drawings gradually replaced chiaroscuro sketches as designs for stained glass.136 Scorel, however, is more likely to have been influenced by a stage in the design sequence that typified Raphael’s studio, the modello, the stage that synthesized the placement of forms in the composition with the overall lighting.137 Given the specific links to Italian painting technique in Scorel’s works, the artist is likely to have had direct contact with Raphael’s followers and could have observed their workshop procedures. This aspect of Scorel’s shop routine was influential in the north, for it links with the increasing prevalence of washed drawings by artists such as Lucas van Leyden, Jan Swart, and Pieter Aertsen, just to mention a few north Netherlandish painters.138 These drawings do not provide us with a complete record of Scorel’s design stage; we have no free sketches that could presumably represent the first ideas for a composition. Still, we can postulate that the surviving drawings had various purposes. Some were almost certainly presentation drawings, or vidimi, drawings shown to a patron for approval.139 Others show little or no relationship with surviving paintings, suggesting that they were alternate versions of compositions. As described above, the wash drawings were clearly studies of light and shade, but some were also taken through a sequence of repetitions. The Stoning of Stephen composition exists as three drawings, in both horizontal and vertical formats, and in two media, pen and ink and pen and wash. Shop collaborators also participated in this particular sequence, suggesting that Scorel used this type of drawing in the workshop as Raphael did, as an organizational and teaching tool. Scorel’s practice parallels Raphael’s in another respect: modelli were used as the models for prints rather than finished works. This has been shown to be true of works by Scorel discussed above and Marcantonio Raimondi’s engravings after Raphael’s compositions.140 In making models for various media, Scorel defines his activity as that of the archetypal sixteenth-century designer-painter, although his models were limited to painting, stained glass, and prints – and one might add, church furnishings and polder design – rather than the tapestry production that characterized the southern Netherlands. Conclusions We cannot fully grasp Scorel’s importance for north Netherlandish painting without understanding his artistic practice and working procedure. Earlier studies have intimated that Karel van Mander was referring, at least in part, to Scorel’s technique when he characterized the artist as the ‘road builder of our art’.141 It has not been possible, however, to make more than assumptions

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Fig. 20a Jan van Scorel, Madonna and Child, c. 1530. Tambov, Kartinaja Galeria. IRR showing underdrawing of the Christ child’s legs (IRR and digital composite: MolArt/ nwo) Fig. 20b Jan van Scorel, Madonna and Child c. 1527-1530. Utrecht, Centraal Museum. IRR showing underdrawing of the Christ child’s legs (IRR and digital composite: MolArt/ nwo)

142 James et al. 1997, p. 68. 143 Van Asperen de Boer, Faries and Filedt Kok 1986, pp. 108 and 110.

about Scorel’s drawing and painting technique until the last few decades, when various types of technical study began to elucidate the build-up of Scorel’s works in a more precise way. These investigations revealed, first and foremost, the importance of Scorel’s design stage. Infrared reflectography documented the routine use of black chalk for underdrawings in Scorel’s workshop after his return from Italy. This material is said to have revolutionized the technique of drawing, because it offered greater freedom of style and was suitable for compositions of greater breadth.142 This was surely also the case with underdrawings. The sweeping change in the Netherlands between 1520 and 1530, from detailed underdrawings in brush to broader sketches in black chalk, must relate to Scorel’s dissemination of this technique.143 Scorel’s use of black chalk went hand in hand with his reversal of the traditional underdrawing/priming structure, putting the priming in the position that Vasari describes, and in Scorel’s case, making the priming the source of the luminosity of his paintings. With the exception of natural ultramarine blue, most of the pigments Scorel employed were common at the time. The blue-over-rose build-up of colour has direct parallels with Italian painting practice, and this paint-layer structure affects many of the blues and purples in the artist’s general palette. Scorel’s activity is also characterized by the establishment of a productive shop, one in which the artist employed the most up-to-date design methods. The use of preparatory drawings and shop models was certainly not exclusive to Scorel, but the size of his studio demanded a higher level of systematization in shop production. In many respects, one could say that Scorel synchronized his drawing and painting technique with widespread European practice, both in the southern Netherlands and Italy. In that sense, Jan van Scorel became a pioneer in his native land.

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