Jan van Scorel (copy after)

Portrait of Cornelis Aerentsz van der Dussen (1481-1556)

c. 1555 - c. 1570

Inscriptions

  • inscription, lower right, on the letter:Sij gegeven aan den Eersame[n] discreten [corn]elis aerntsz secretarius tot delft(To be given to the Honourable [Corn]elis Aerentsz, secretary of Delft)

Technical notes

The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (25.2, 24.4 and 26.9 cm), 0.7-0.1 cm thick. Dendrochronology has shown that all of the planks are from the same tree and that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1533. The panel could have been ready for use by 1544, but a date in or after 1558 is more likely. The whitish ground and paint layers were applied up to the panel’s edges. Some underdrawn contour lines are visible to the unaided eye in the hands and above the eyes, and infrared reflectography reveals traces of fine, exacting contours in the hands, ring and face, and somewhat looser lines in the tree trunk and landscape, although the costume remains opaque. The underdrawing was done in a dry material, probably black chalk. In general the paint was smoothly applied, although some impasto occurs in the foliage. The face was not painted wet in wet, as some brushstrokes can be detected.

Scientific examination and reports

  • infrared reflectography: M. Faries, RKD, nos. MF 525:17-22, 15 mei 1987
  • condition report: B. Schoonhoven, RMA, 15 maart 2006
  • infrared reflectography: M. Wolters / M. Leeflang [2], RKD/RMA, no. RKDG383, 18 april 2006
  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 10 juni 2006

Condition

Good. The varnish is slightly discoloured, and there is some discoloured retouching.

Conservation

  • M. Zeldenrust, 1979 - 1980: the planks separated and the joins reglued; flaking paint consolidated; retouched and revarnished
  • Hans de Herder, 1979 - 1980

Provenance

…; sale, Louis Caspar Luzac (1786-1861, Leiden), 1872;1Note RMA; the sale catalogue has not been located. …; from Mr G. Bérardi, Brussels, fl. 1,723, to the Dutch State for the museum, September 1890; on loan to the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, 1930-69

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1532

The artist

Biography

Jan van Scorel (Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562), copy after

Jan van Scorel was born in 1495, according to Karel van Mander, in the village of Schoorl northwest of Alkmaar, the natural son of a priest, Andries Ouckeyn, and Dieuwer Aertsdr. He died in Utrecht in 1562 and was buried in the Mariakerk, where a funerary monument was erected that contained a portrait of Scorel by his pupil, Antonio Moro. Van Mander praised Scorel for having visited Italy, returning with a new and more beautiful manner of painting; and the artist is still recognised today for the widespread influence that his Italianate style had in the northern Netherlands.

Jan van Scorel was not only a painter but also a canon. His church office in the Mariakerk, Utrecht, prohibited him from marrying, but his will (1537) tells us that he lived with Agatha van Schoonhoven as his common-law wife; the date 1529 on Scorel’s portrait of her must mark the period when the two met.2Rome, Galeria Doria Pamphilj; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 255, pl. 189. One of the couple’s six children, Peter (c. 1530-1622) became a painter. Van Mander’s remark that Scorel ‘was very familiar with and liked by all the great lords of the Netherlands,’ is almost an understatement. The artist built up an influential network among the clergy, beginning with Pope Adrian VI, the artist’s protector when he arrived in Rome around 1522, and including Herman van Lokhorst, dean of Oudmunster (St Saviour), Scorel’s first, important patron in Utrecht, and other fellow ecclesiastics. In addition, Scorel had high court connections. In the negotiations surrounding his canonry, Scorel’s sponsors were none other than the stadholders Henry III of Nassau-Breda and Floris of Egmond, the most powerful nobles at the Court of Holland at the time. In c. 1532-33, Scorel visited the courts at Breda and Mechelen, where he met the neo-Latin poet, Janus Secundus, and was at the court in Brussels around 1552. Scorel also worked for the municipality of Utrecht and received payments from the city for his activities associated with the triumphal entries into Utrecht of Charles V (1540) and Philip II (1549).

Early sources suggest Scorel began his training as an apprentice in Alkmaar or Haarlem, but neither suggestions have been substantiated. Van Mander’s account is more credible when it comes to the second step in Scorel’s training: after attending the Latin School in Alkmaar, Scorel moved to Amsterdam around 1512, where he became an assistant in Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen’s workshop. Van Mander also reports that Scorel studied briefly with Jan Gossart, who came to Utrecht after his protector, Philip of Burgundy, had been elected bishop in 1517. By 1518-19 Scorel left the Netherlands on a long journey whose route was described in detail by Karel van Mander, eventually taking the painter to Venice, the Holy Land and Rome.

Scorel’s stays in both Venice and Rome can be construed as a continuation of his training, for he was profoundly influenced by his new surroundings. After returning to Venice from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem around 1520, Scorel painted a number of portraits and landscapes, and he may have ventured on to Rome after the Utrecht native, Adriaan Florisz Boeyens, was elected pope in January 1522. According to Van Mander, Scorel not only had access to antique statuary as overseer of the Vatican collections in the Belvedere, an appointment he received from Pope Adrian VI, he was also able to make drawings after Raphael, Michelangelo and the works of other Italian masters. Adrian VI’s promise to Scorel of a canonry in Utrecht led the artist to settle there in 1524 after his return from Rome.

Van Mander’s life of Jan van Scorel is the primary source for the reconstruction of the painter’s oeuvre. He knew, for instance, that during his early travels, the painter worked for nobility in Carinthia (Austria), where Scorel’s first signed and dated painting, the 1519 Holy Kinship altarpiece, can still be seen today.3Obervellach, St Martin’s; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 298, pls. 160-62. The major touchstone of Scorel’s first years in Utrecht, the Triptych with the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem painted as a memorial for members of the Lokhorst family around 1526,4Utrecht, Centraal Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2011, no. 22. is described at length by Van Mander. When Jan van Scorel moved to Haarlem (1527-30), Van Mander tells us that he was received by Simon van Sanen, Commander of the Knights of St John. Both Van Mander’s account and the inventories of the order mention a number of key works that Scorel completed during this period: The Baptism of Christ, Adam and Eve5Both in Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 601, no. 425, p. 605, no. 427. and Mary Magdalen (SK-A-372). Scorel’s Haarlem period was an extremely critical and productive one: he established his basic repertoire of subjects, received more prestigious commissions, such as the Crucifixion Altarpiece for the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam (now lost), rented a house and took on students, among them Maarten van Heemskerck, and expanded and standardised the operations of his workshop.

Scorel’s ‘most flourishing period’, according to Karel van Mander, followed upon the artist’s return to Utrecht by September 1530. Unfortunately, many of the works Van Mander describes from this period have been lost. The Finding of the True Cross triptych, probably commissioned by Henry III of Nassau-Breda in the mid-1530s, has survived, although in poor condition.6Breda, Grote Kerk; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 302, pl. 165. Some remarkable discoveries were made in the late 20th century of altarpieces executed by Scorel and his shop around 1540 for the abbey of Marchiennes in what is now northern France. Fragments survive from an Altarpiece with St Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, and the Polyptych with Sts James the Greater and Stephen lacks only one wing.7Both in Douai, Museé de La Chartreuse; illustrated in Faries 1975, p. 115, figs. 15a-b, pp. 112-13, figs. 14a-c. These works, along with the Landscape with Bathsheba of c. 1540-45 (SK-A-670), provide us with a better understanding of Scorel’s late style. His oeuvre consists of some 60 extant paintings, between 20 and 25 drawings, and 6 designs for prints.

In addition to Maarten van Heemskerck, Antonio Moro and Scorel’s son Peter were apprentices in Scorel’s shop. Others, such as Lambert Sustris, may have had brief contact with his workshop as assistants. Van Mander describes Scorel as the typical uomo universale of his time. He was skilled in languages, wrote poetry as well as songs, acted as an amateur archaeologist and marine engineer, and participated in an ambitious land development scheme, the reclamation of the Zijpe in north Holland.

References
Lampsonius 1572 (1956), no. 17; Buchelius 1583-1639 (1928), pp. 21, 26-30, 52, 63-64; Van Mander 1604, fols. 234r-36v; Muller 1880; Justi 1881, pp. 193-210; Scheibler/Bode 1881, pp. 211-14; Hoogewerff 1923a; Friedländer XII, 1935, pp. 118-56; Hoogewerff in Thieme/Becker XXX, 1936, pp. 401-04; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 23-191; ENP XII, 1975, pp. 65-81; Faries 1970, pp. 2-24 (documents); Faries 1972; Faries in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 179-80; Miedema III, 1996, pp. 268-90; Faries in Turner 1996, XXVIII, pp. 215-29; Faries 1997, pp. 107-16; Van Thiel-Stroman in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, pp. 303-04; Faries in coll. cat. Utrecht 2011, pp. 167-69

M. Faries, 2010
Updated by the author, 2016

Entry

Cornelis Aerentsz van der Dussen was indirectly related to the knightly branch of the family, having taken his name from his mother-in-law, Machteld van der Dussen. He was sheriff of Delft from 1524-30 before becoming city secretary in 1536. In this work, he is identified as such by the inscription on the letter he holds in his hand.8For Van der Dussen see Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82, and for a more recent account, Nagtegaal 2006, pp. 207-08, 373 (with thanks to Judith Niessen for bringing this last article to my attention). Wearing a black baret and black tabbaard with wide fur lapels and fur showing at the sleeve openings, Van der Dussen is portrayed half-length standing against a background of the 'cosmic landscape' type. The standing collar of his linen shirt embroidered in white with a geometrical pattern was already old-fashioned in the 1540s. From 1519-56, Van der Dussen was also one of the churchwardens of the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft. Because Jan van Scorel entered into a contract with the Nieuwe Kerk’s churchwardens in 1550 for a new high altarpiece, it has often been assumed that the prototype for this portrait must date around this time.9Hoogewerff 1923a, p. 101; De Jonge 1940, p. 54; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66. Other scholars, making the more reasonable assumption that the sitter in this portrait appears to be younger than 70 years of age, date Scorel’s prototype around 1540-45.10Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66. This would place the portrait closer to the date of Van der Dussen’s appointment as city secretary.

Except for Hoogewerff, who at a later date considered the painting a copy after Maarten van Heemskerck,11Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82. scholarly opinion has been consistent in regarding this painting as a copy after Jan van Scorel.12Hoogewerff 1923a, pp. 101, 136, no. 43; Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 204, no. 351a; De Jonge 1940, p. 54; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66; ENP XII, 1975, p. 125, no. 351a. The argument can be made on the basis of style. The strong, geometric modelling that characterises Scorel’s portraits can be sensed in Van der Dussen’s face, and the curving tree trunk to the left of the figure is a type that recurs frequently in Scorel’s paintings, such as the artist’s well-known Baptism of Christ in Haarlem.13Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 317, pl. 173. Although the painter rarely uses such a high horizon in his works, it does occur, as in the Landscape with the Calling of Peter.14USA, private collection; illustrated in Utrecht 1955, no. 21, fig. 55. In their cool colouring and sharply highlighted leaves, the rounded, bumpy bushes are reminiscent of those in The Good Samaritan, a work executed by one of Scorel’s studio assistants called the Master of the Good Samaritan (see SK-A-3468). The underdrawing in this portrait, however, is not as heavy and methodical as in paintings by the Good Samaritan Master. Even though the underdrawing is probably black chalk, which was used routinely by Scorel, the lines are fairly thin and do not exhibit enough stylistic traits to allow us to situate the portrait in Scorel’s workshop. The dendrochronological estimates, which indicate a probable date of execution from 1558 on, also make it unlikely that the Rijksmuseum painting could be associated with Scorel’s shop.

There are other versions of this portrait that are also considered copies after the same lost Scorel prototype. One is an identical but slightly smaller version in Berlin (fig. a). There are also two bust-length copies, one once documented in a Delft collection,15Panel, 52 x 65 cm, previously in collection Hoogheemraad van Delfland, Delft, probably an old copy after the same prototype; photo RMA. and the other, on canvas, in a private collection.16On loan, Geldersche Kasteelen Stichting, Kasteel Zypendaal, Arnhem, 76 x 60 cm; illustrated on-line at RKD portraits, no. IB 49703.

Assuming that this work can indeed be regarded as an accurate copy after Jan van Scorel, it can be inferred that the painter enlarged his portrait format beyond that represented in his extant works. Scorel did this during his stay in Haarlem from 1527 to 1530, when he opened up his portraits to include a landscape rather than a flat, undifferentiated background.17See, for instance, his Portrait of a Man in Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 362, pl. 193. His first half-length, standing figures appear in Twelve Members of the Haarlem Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims of c. 1528 in Haarlem.18Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 349, pl. 185. Scorel continues to close off the background in his Portrait of Reinoud III van Brederode (SK-A-1619), but in this portrait of Van der Dussen, the format has been expanded again by combining the half-length figure with a landscape vista.

M. Faries, 2010

Literature

Moes I, 1897, p. 253, no. 2190:2; Hoogewerff 1923a, pp. 101, 136, no. 43; Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 204, no. 351a; De Jonge 1940, p. 54; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82 (as copy after Maarten van Heemskerck); Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66; ENP XII, 1975, p. 125, no. 351a

Download Bibliography (PDF)

Collection catalogues

1903, p. 246, no. 2195; 1976, p. 513, no. A 1532

Citation

M. Faries, 2010, 'copy after Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Cornelis Aerentsz van der Dussen (1481-1556), c. 1555 - c. 1570', in M. Ubl (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5447

(accessed 10 August 2025 20:57:53).

Figures

  • fig. a Copy after Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Cornelis Aerentsz van der Dussen (1481-1556), c. 1555-70. Oil on panel, 98 x 74 cm. Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 644. Photo: bpk / Gemäldegalerie, SMB / Volker-H. Schneider.

Footnotes

  • 1Note RMA; the sale catalogue has not been located.
  • 2Rome, Galeria Doria Pamphilj; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 255, pl. 189.
  • 3Obervellach, St Martin’s; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 298, pls. 160-62.
  • 4Utrecht, Centraal Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Utrecht 2011, no. 22.
  • 5Both in Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in coll. cat. Haarlem 2006, p. 601, no. 425, p. 605, no. 427.
  • 6Breda, Grote Kerk; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 302, pl. 165.
  • 7Both in Douai, Museé de La Chartreuse; illustrated in Faries 1975, p. 115, figs. 15a-b, pp. 112-13, figs. 14a-c.
  • 8For Van der Dussen see Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82, and for a more recent account, Nagtegaal 2006, pp. 207-08, 373 (with thanks to Judith Niessen for bringing this last article to my attention).
  • 9Hoogewerff 1923a, p. 101; De Jonge 1940, p. 54; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66.
  • 10Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66.
  • 11Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 180-82.
  • 12Hoogewerff 1923a, pp. 101, 136, no. 43; Friedländer XII, 1935, p. 204, no. 351a; De Jonge 1940, p. 54; Utrecht 1955, p. 68, no. 66; ENP XII, 1975, p. 125, no. 351a.
  • 13Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 317, pl. 173.
  • 14USA, private collection; illustrated in Utrecht 1955, no. 21, fig. 55.
  • 15Panel, 52 x 65 cm, previously in collection Hoogheemraad van Delfland, Delft, probably an old copy after the same prototype; photo RMA.
  • 16On loan, Geldersche Kasteelen Stichting, Kasteel Zypendaal, Arnhem, 76 x 60 cm; illustrated on-line at RKD portraits, no. IB 49703.
  • 17See, for instance, his Portrait of a Man in Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gemäldegalerie; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 362, pl. 193.
  • 18Frans Hals Museum; illustrated in ENP XII, 1975, no. 349, pl. 185.