SCOREL, Jan van

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Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562

The following text is part of the catalogue ‘Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850. The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum’ (2006). Copyright belongs to the respective owners: Ludion Ghent, the authors and Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. All rights reserved. Original source: Irene van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Jan van Scorel’ under: Biographies 15th - 17th century, in: Neeltje Köhler, Koos Levy-van Halm - Epo Runia e.a. (eds.), Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850. The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum (Ghent: Ludion Ghent, 2006) 303-304.

Jan van Scorel was born in Schoorl (northwest of Alkmaar) on 1 August 1495 as the natural son of the priest Andries Ouckeyn and Dieuwer Aertsdr.1 Two seventeenth-century sources give differing accounts of Scorel’s artistic training. According to Van Mander, Scorel attended the Latin School in Alkmaar until the age of 14, went to Haarlem in 1509 to study with Willem Cornelisz (died in Haarlem in 1592),2 and continued his training three years later in Amsterdam under Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (Oostsanen? c. 1572-Amsterdam 1533).3 Buchelius - who is silent concerning the artist’s pupillage in Haarlem – maintains that Scorel trained in Alkmaar with Cornelis Cornelisz Buys (active as of 1516, died 1545/46 in Alkmaar), the brother of Van Oostsanen.4 Van Mander also notes that Scorel spent a brief time with Jan Gossaert (Maubeuge 1478-Antwerp 1532) in Utrecht, probably in 1517 or 1518.5 Van Mander relates that in 1518 or at the latest 1519, Scorel left Utrecht to travel along the Rhine via Cologne to Spiers, where he stayed a while with a specialist in architecture and perspective, and then to Strasbourg and from there to Basel. He subsequently went to Nuremberg and spent some time there in Dürer’s workshop. In 1519 he travelled via Steyr in Carinthia6 to Venice, from where he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1520.7 He returned to Venice that same year, and then went to Rome.8 The Dutchman Adriaen Florisz Boeyens (1459-1523) became Pope Adrian VI in 1522. He appointed Scorel as keeper of

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antiquities in the Belvedere, a position held by Raphael until his death in 1520. During this time, Scorel lived in the papal apartments and portrayed the pope.9 Adrian VI granted him a prebend at the chapter of St Mary’s in Utrecht, which confirmed this promise in August 1525.10 Scorel was invested as canon of St Mary’s on 16 October 1528.11 The pope died in September 1523, and in May 1524 Scorel sent the portrait he had executed two months before the pope’s death from Rome to Adriaen van Marselaer in Antwerp, accompanied by a letter.12 Soon after that he returned to Utrecht, where he painted two shutters of the organ in the Salvatorkerk (called Oudmunster), payment for which he received in September 1524.13 He refused to join the local Saddlers’ Guild, which included the painters, undoubtedly because as a canon he deemed it beneath his dignity.14 According to Buchelius (who noted that Cornelis Buys was Scorel’s teacher), immediately upon his return to Utrecht Scorel went to Alkmaar to complete the Van Egmond van de Nijenburg family memorial, which Buys had left unfinished at his death (Buchelius gives Buys’ date of death as in or shortly before 1524).15 In 1527 Scorel fled from the city of Utrecht because of the political turmoil,16 and settled in Haarlem just after 29 April of that year, staying there until the fall of 1530. 17 No archival material bearing upon his sojourn in Haarlem has been found, but Van Mander mentions that he was enthusiastically received there by Simon van Saenen (died in 1542), the commander of the Commandery of St John in the Monastery of the Holy Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem since 1514. Scorel made several paintings for him, including a Baptism of Christ,18 and painted his portrait.19 In or just after 1528 Scorel executed the Group portrait of 12 members of the Knightly Brotherhood of the Holy Land in Haarlem.20 In 1529 Scorel portrayed Agatha Ysacksdr van Schoonhoven,21 his common-law wife. Apparently, he met her in Haarlem, and not in Utrecht as is always tacitly assumed in the literature. The couple had six children.22 The most important aspect of Scorel’s presence in Haarlem was his influence on Maerten van Heemskerck*, who became his apprentice (he had previously worked with two teachers and was almost 30 years old), filled with admiration for the celebrated Utrecht master with his Italian experience.23 After Scorel’s return to Utrecht in 1530 he made several trips both as a canon serving the chapter’s business interests and as a painter executing commissions. For instance, in 1532 and 1533 he visited the courts of Breda and Malines, in 1539 he went to IJsselstein and in

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1540 he travelled to the Abbey of Marchiennes in northern France. In 1541/42 he conducted negotiations with René de Chalon concerning St Mary’s possessions. In the period 1549-1553 he drafted plans for the improvement of the harbour of Harderwijk, the deepening of the Vecht and the reclaiming of the Zijpe in Noord-Holland. In 1549 and 1550 he stayed in Ghent where, together with Lancelot Blondeel, he cleaned the altarpiece by Jan van Eyck. In 1552 he visited the court in Brussels. And, he was active for some time in Delft. Jan van Scorel died in Utrecht on 6 December 1562 and was buried in the Mariakerk.24 His monument was embellished with a round portrait of him by Anthonie Mor van Dashorst dated 1560.25 Jan van Scorel painted altarpieces, devotional works and portraits. Deeply marked by his time in Italy, he exerted great influence on the development of sixteenth-century Northern Netherlandish painting. Frans Floris (1516-1570) called him “the lantern carrier and paviour of our art in the Netherlands” (den Lanteeren-drager en Straet-maker onser Consten in den Nederlanden).26

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Literature Van Gelder 1918, pp. 177-182; Hoogewerff 1923; Hoogewerff 1936-47, vol. 4 (1941-42), pp. 23-191; Thieme/Becker 1907-50, vol. 30 (1936), pp. 401-404 (G. J. Hoogewerff); Utrecht 1955; Faries 1970, pp. 2-24; Utrecht/Douai 1977; Snoep 1977; De Meyere 1981; Faries 1986, pp. 179-180; Defoer/Dirkse 1986; Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, pp. 268-290

Notes 1. Van Gelder 1918, p. 178. 2. Van Mander 1604, fol. 234v. In the arthistorical literature it is assumed that Van Mander made an error about the name and actually meant Cornelis Willemsz, the painter he mentions elsewhere as the teacher of Maerten van Heemskerck. Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 273, comments under 234v14, however, published a Haarlem town council decree dated 4 July 1589 granting the petition of “master Willem Cornelissen painter” (meester Willem Cornelissen Schilder) for a subsistence allowance on account of advanced age.

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In the meantime, the family tree of the priest Pieter Jacobsz makes it clear that Willem Cornelisz was a son of Cornelis Willemsz, who used the surname of Pictor. Cornelis (Willemsz) Pictor had four children: the aforementioned Willem Pictor (died childless in 1592), the priest Pieter Pictor, the painter Floris Pictor and a daughter Fijntje. Van Thiel 1999, Appendix IV (Family Tree of Pieter Jacobsz). 3. Hoogewerff/Van Regteren Altena 1928, p. 30; Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, pp. 274-275, comments under 234v34-35 and 234v40. 4. As in note 3. 5. Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 276, comments under 235r01-02 and 235r03, dates the sojourn to 1517-1519. 6. The triptych The holy kinship altarpiece (Obervellach, Pfarkirche), which Scorel painted there on commission for Count Cristoforo Frangipani or his wife Apollonia Lang von Wellenburg, or Cardinal Matthäus Lang von Wellenberg, prince-archbishop of Salzburg, is dated 1519. Faries 1975, p. 205, note 30; Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, pp. 276-277, comments under 235r19 and 235r20. 7. Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, pp. 277-278, comments under 235r35-36 (see also 235v14). 8. Meijer 1974, pp. 62-68. 9. Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 281, comments under 235v22 and 235v25. See Utrecht 1955, cat. no. 5, for Scorel’s portraits of the pope. 10. Faries 1970, p. 12, doc. 2. 11. Faries 1970, p. 13, doc. 7. Moreover, in his letter of 1524 Scorel called himself “Canon of Utrecht” (Canonick t'Utrecht). See note 12. Before 1528 Scorel had already been appointed vicar of St Jan. Hoogewerff 1923, pp. 41-42, 115-116; Faries 1970, pp. 12-13, doc. 3; Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 279, comments under 235v11-12. 12. Hoogewerff 1923, pp. 38-39; Hoogewerff 1936-47, vol. 4 (1941-42), pp. 62-63. 13. Faries 1970, p. 12, doc. 1. 14. Hoogewerff/Van Regteren Altena 1928, p. 29; Snoep 1977, pp. 30-31. Scorel's view of his position as a painter first became evident in 1519, when he signed the Frangipani Altarpiece as an art lover (“Joannes Scorelius Hollandius pictorie artis amator pingebat anno a virginis partu 1519”). See also note 6.

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15. Hoogewerff/Van Regteren Altena 1928, p. 30; Miedema 1994-99 vol. 3, pp. 275-276, comments under 234v34-35. 16. Snoep 1977, pp. 31-32 (‘The political situation in Utrecht'); Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 283, comments under 235v41. 17. Faries 1970, pp. 4-5, 13-14, docs. 4, 1; Miedema 1994-99, vol. 3, p. 283, comments under 235v43 (incorrectly dates Scorel’s arrival in Haarlem to before 29 April 1527). 18. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, inv. no. I-312. See Bruyn 1954, passim, for Scorel’s work for Van Saenen. 19. Van Bueren 1993, pp. 391-393 (cat. no. C11). 20. Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, inv. no. I-310. Van Bueren 1993, pp. 463-467 (cat. no. F10). 21. Rome, Palazzo Doria Pamphili. 22. [1] Pieter, born 1530, called himself Van Sypenes, became a wine merchant and was known as a painter in 1569; [2] Pauwels, became a poet and a musician, and was captain of the Utrecht civic guard in 1579; [3] Maria; [4] Anna; [5] Felix, born after 1537, married Geertruyt de Bruyn and was an excise collector; [6] Victor became vicar of the Pieterskerk in Utrecht and was a mathematician and cartographer. Hoogewerff 1936-47, vol. 4 (1941-42), p. 171 note 2; Faries 1986, p. 180. 23. Van Mander 1604, fol. 245r. Also Lodovico Guicciardini 1567, p. 100, and Hadrianus Junius 1588, pp. 238, mention Heemskerck’s activity in the workshop of Jan van Scorel. 24. Faries 1970, p. 23, doc. 64. 25. Defoer/Dirkse 1986. 26. Van Mander 1604, fol. 234v.