Jan van Scorel

According to Van Mander, Jan van Scorel was born in the village of Schoorl, near Alkmaar, where he attended the Latin school. In 1512, Jan moved to Amsterdam and became an assistant in Jacob Cornelisz's bustling studio. With a solid education in his pocket, the talented twenty-year old artist travelled abroad around 1518.

Van Scorel was one of the first North Netherlandish painters to visit Italy. He travelled through Germany and Carinthia to Venice and made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He returned to Venice around 1520. About two years later he moved to Rome, where a Dutchman had been elected pope.

In Rome, Jan entered into the service of the Utrecht Pope Adrian VI as keeper of the Vatican collections in the Belvedere. This made him the successor of the famous Italian artist Raphael. The nude figure in his painting The Dying Cleopatra can most likely be traced back to a famous antique statue of Ariadne in the Belvedere.

Van Scorel was not only a painter, but also a clergyman. After the pope's death in 1523 he returned to the Netherlands. In 1524 he settled in Utrecht where, as the pope had promised him, he became a canon. His network and patrons also included other clergymen, such as Joris van Egmond, bishop of Utrecht between 1534 and 1559, who was in Emperor Charles V’s good graces.

Van Scorel's time in Italy was a great source of artistic inspiration for him. His familiarity with the work of Michelangelo and Raphael, among others, made him a critical early representative of the Renaissance style in the Northern Netherlands. This is also reflected in the Rijksmuseum's collection.

Anyone thinking of Jan van Scorel instantly recalls this masterpiece. The woman is Mary Magdalene, recognizable by the ointment jar with which she anointed Christ’s feet. The figure radiates the influence of Italian painting. The colourful fabric of her robe may come from the Middle East.

From the ancient fountain statues to the classical architecture of the palace, everything here exudes classical antiquity. The biblical story hardly stands out. Seated in the left foreground, Bathsheba bathes while being spied upon by King David, the small figure on the balcony at the right. Even from that distance, he is captivated by her beauty.

The muscular, semi-nude bodies in this depiction of the baptism of Christ are clearly inspired by Michelangelo's ceiling paintings in the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which Van Scorel knew well through his work for the pope there.

Scorel’s influential network also afforded him portrait commissions. In addition to the bishop of Utrecht, Joris van Egmond, he also portrayed noblemen such as Reinoud III of Brederode, an important champion of Emperor Charles V.

Jan van Scorel did not solely portray noblemen. This likeness of a Haarlem man, looking directly at us, is illustrative of the increasing interest in the individual in the early 16th century and reflects the growing self-awareness of ordinary townspeople.