Left wing of a triptych with the donor Matelief Dammasz and St Paul (inner wing), and the Erythraean Sibyl (outer wing)

The support consists of three vertically grained oak planks (25.8, 26.2 and 24.5 cm), 0.6 cm thick. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring of the frame was formed in 1533. The framed panel could have been ready for use by 1544, but a date in or after 1558 is more likely. The white ground was applied in the frame, as there are unpainted edges and remains of a barbe along all sides on both the front and reverse. A light-coloured priming was applied with broad brushstrokes, which are visible through the paint layers, particularly in the face of the donor and Paul’s robe (front) and the Sibyl’s dress (reverse). The underdrawing, consisting of broad contour lines in brush, is clearly visible to the naked eye, especially on the reverse in the Erythraean Sibyl, though it becomes almost transparent with infrared reflectography. In the face of the Sibyl the layout is less visible through the paint layers to the naked eye than it is in her dress. Infrared reflectography of the face does, however, reveal a change in the position of the eyes. They were drawn higher up, and the whole face may have been smaller in the underdrawing, as the contour lines above her eyes and on her chin suggest. The Sibyl’s right foot exists only in the underdrawing, which is now visible through the paint layers. The foot depicted in contours is covered by the paint of her dress. The paint layers were applied thinly with a broad brush. The hands and faces (on both the front and the reverse), which are painted more precisely, are better preserved than the larger areas painted in one colour. Smalt was possibly used for the sky and orpiment for the Sibyl’s yellow dress.

Fair. There is a considerable crack along the right join running from the bottom to the top of the donor’s hand. The varnish on the outer wing is discoloured and dirty.

Both sides of the wing are set in the closed rebate of the oak frame (fig. b). The front and back of this frame have the same entablature profile with a plain frieze. The cross-section of the profile on each side shows a fillet and a jump, a reverse ogee, two fillets with jumps, an ovolo, a fillet and a jump, a plain frieze, a fillet and a jump, an ogee, a jump and a fillet, with a last jump at the sight edge. The frame consists of an inner section, forming the frieze and the architrave along the sight edge, and a cornice moulding nailed onto the outside. The inner sections are joined at the corners with mitred open-end mortise and tenon joints held together with dowels. The frame has been completely stripped, but traces of a white ground are present. On the side of the frame to the right of the Sibyl two oak blocks have been set into the outside of the frame, most likely to fill the space where a pair of hinges once were. Assuming that the Sibyl was on the outer left wing and the image with the donor on the inside of the triptych, the position of these blocks suggests that the panel is no longer mounted in its original position in the frame. On the outside of the frame, at the centre of the top and bottom members, there are black marks, possibly rust from former iron attachments.

? Commissioned by Matelief Dammasz for one of the churches or cloisters of Delft;¹¹Harrison 1987, pp. 863, 866. …; recorded in the Burgomasters’ Chamber, beside the chimney, Town Hall, Delft, 1667 (‘een deur van een Altaer-Tafel […] aen de ene zijde is een contrefeitsel met een seer Godtvruchtigh knielende Man met sijn Patroon St. Paulus achter hem staende, ende aen de ander zijde een van de tien Sybillen genaemt Sybilla Erythrea […] sittende in een Woestijne met een Boeck in haer handt’;²²Van Bleyswijck 1667, p. 125. recorded in the Burgomasters’ Chamber, beside the chimney, Town Hall, Delft, 1729;³³Boitet 1729 (1972), p. 74. sale, Property taken from the Town Hall of the City of Delft et al. [section Town Hall, Delft], Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 24 April 1860 sqq., no. 53, fl. 64, to Jonkheer Dr Jan Pieter Six (1824-99);⁴⁴Copy RMA. by whom lent to the museum, 1885 (SK-C-460); his sons Jonkheer Dr Jan Six (1857-1926) and Jonkheer Willem Six (1859-1919); by whom presented to the museum, 1900

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1910

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of Jonkheer J.P. Six

This work is very probably the left wing of a triptych, of which, as Preibisz first noticed in 1911, the side with the donor and St Paul is the interior and the side with the Erythraean Sibyl is the exterior (fig. b).

The ten Sibyls were pagan prophetesses who foresaw the life of Christ. The Sibyl of Erythraea was the oldest and most important one, featuring in Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, and was regarded as the prophetess of the Last Judgement until the 14th century, after which she was mostly connected to Christ’s death and resurrection. Since the 15th century she was associated with the incarnation of Christ and the glory of Mary.¹¹¹¹See De Jongh 1964, p. 29b; Freund 1936, pp. 1-6. In this painting, she is depicted monumentally and takes up most of the picture surface. Clad in a yellow and golden robe, she is seated on a rock holding her book in her right hand and gazing to the right, her left hand pointing in the same direction at something outside the picture. De Jongh suggested that she is pointing at her prophecy, which was revealed on the centre panel once the triptych was opened.¹²¹²De Jongh 1964, p. 29b. Her pose, as Veldman recognised,¹³¹³Veldman 1977, p. 118, note 13. is similar to that of the Virgin in Heemskerck’s St Luke Painting the Virgin in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes,¹⁴¹⁴c. 1553; illustrated in ENP XIII, 1975, no. 208, pl. 105. whose crossed feet seem to be based on Michelangelo’s figure of Isaiah in the Sistine Chapel.¹⁵¹⁵Grosshans 1980, p. 238. In the background is a green, hilly landscape, and at the foot of a high rocky mountain in the distance there is a town, in which De Jongh recognised three Delft landmarks, albeit not in topographical order: the Town Hall, the Oude Kerk and the Nieuwe Kerk.¹⁶¹⁶De Jongh 1964, p. 29b.

On the other side of the panel, the donor, accompanied by his patron saint Paul, is kneeling at his prie-dieu. The inscription ‘Te Maten Lief Dammasz.’ on the prie-dieu and the coat of arms with nine daisies, which is also repeated in the patron’s ring, reveal, as Moes first recorded, his family name Matelief (madelief means daisy) and patronymic Dammasz, but not his first name.¹⁷¹⁷Moes I, 1897, p. 219, no. 1905. Harrison identified the donor as the Latinist Gulielmus (William) Lindanus Dammasus (Dordrecht 1505 - Ghent 1588), who served as Vicar-General of Leeuwarden, Bishop of Roermond and papal attendant to Gregory XII in Rome,¹⁸¹⁸Harrison 1987, p. 870. but so far no connection has been found between him and Heemskerck, nor between him and Delft. Grosshans interpreted the inscription to mean ‘Live with temperance, dear Dammasz’ (maten meaning measure and life meaning dear).¹⁹¹⁹Grosshans 1980, p. 237. An undated portrait of the same Matelief Dammasz now hangs in Cornell University (fig. a), and is generally regarded as a work by Heemskerck’s assistants,²⁰²⁰Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 320; Harrison 1987, p. 871. in which the sitter’s pose and appearance (apart from the beret) are identical to the Amsterdam painting.

Just like Heemskerck’s Portrait of Johannes Colmannus (SK-C-507), this work belongs to a group of six paintings by the artist recorded in 1667 by the historian Dirck van Bleyswijck as hanging in the Town Hall of Delft and which are assumed originally to have been Delft commissions. This one hung in the Burgomasters’ Chamber and, as Van Bleyswijck writes, was turned around annually so that both sides were given equal exposure.²¹²¹Van Bleyswijck 1667, p. 125. We do not know where this painting was prior to its arrival in the Town Hall. Van Mander writes that there were various altarpieces by Heemskerck hanging in Delft’s Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk during the painter’s lifetime. It is assumed that the triptych with the Erythraean Sibyl was originally painted for one of these churches, or for another religious institution in Delft, and that the left wing was the only part to have survived the 1566 iconoclasm.²²²²See, for example, De Jongh 1964, p. 29a; Grosshans 1980, p. 237. It is likely that the work was moved to the Town Hall in the early 1570s, when the town confiscated the possessions of the newly reformed churches and monasteries.²³²³Harrison 1987, pp. 866-67.

Apart from the meticulously executed face and hands, the Erythraean Sibyl consists mainly of thin paint layers applied in a sketchy manner, which can be explained within the context of the tradition to execute panel exteriors in either grisaille or with a brisk painting technique.²⁴²⁴Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 319. Sibyl’s robe consists of just a single layer of yellow paint of a pigment called orpiment, applied directly onto the imprimatur and highlighted with lead white. Due to many years of exposure to light, the orpiment has faded, revealing most of the broadly sketched underdrawing,²⁵²⁵Wallert 2000, p. 266. which led some specialists in the past to suspect that the painting was never completed.²⁶²⁶Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, p. 385; Harrison 1987, p. 867. This rare exposure of the underdrawing offers us an insight into the artist’s working method, illustrating his liberty to adjust the composition during the painting process.²⁷²⁷See Technical notes.

More paint layers were applied in the donor portrait, and as a result the underdrawing is only slightly visible to the naked eye in some places, such as St Paul’s robe. Based on what is visible, the underdrawings on both sides of the panel are similar.

The reconstruction of the original triptych has always intrigued scholars. It is agreed that the interior right wing showed a second donor, either Matelief Dammasz’s wife or, if he was a clergyman, a family member or fellow clergyman with his or her patron saint, possibly St Peter. On the outer right wing there could well have been a second Sibyl,²⁸²⁸De Jongh 1964, p. 29b. or, as Grosshans suggested, the prophet Isaiah, who sits opposite the Erythraean Sibyl on Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel.²⁹²⁹Grosshans 1980, p. 238. As for the central panel, specialists have proposed a Nativity,³⁰³⁰De Jongh 1964; Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 329; Harrison 1987, p. 870, esp. note 10. and a Lamentation or Entombment.³¹³¹Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, p. 329; Grosshans 1980, p. 238. Considering the rock formation behind Matelief, which, as Grosshans proposed, could well have continued onto the central panel in the shape of a cave, as in Heemskerck’s Brussels Entombment,³²³²Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts; illustrated in ENP, XIII, 1975, no. 182, pls. 90-91. the option of a Lamentation or an Entombment seems most likely.

(Ilona van Tuinen)

Van Bleyswijck 1667, p. 125; Moes I, 1897, p. 219, no. 1905; Preibisz 1911, p. 69, no. 4; Friedländer XIII, 1936, p. 157, no. 185; Hoogewerff IV, 1941-42, pp. 358-62 ; De Jongh 1964, pp. 29a-29b; ENP XIII, 1975, p. 89, no. 185; Veldman 1977, pp. 15, 118, note 13; Grosshans 1980, pp. 237-39, no. 95, with earlier literature; Kloek in Amsterdam 1986a, pp. 319-20, no. 199; Harrison 1987, pp. 863-73, no. 96, with earlier literature; Wallert 2000, p. 266

1887, p. 59, no. 464; 1903, p. 120, no. 1127; 1934, p. 122, no. 1127; 1960, p. 125, no. 1127; 1976, p. 264, no. A 1910

I. van Tuinen, 2001, 'Maarten van Heemskerck, Left wing of a triptych with the donor Matelief Dammasz and St Paul (inner wing), and the Erythraean Sibyl (outer wing), 1564', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8650