Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen Lot n° 2008

Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen The Virgin and Child Oil on panel. 45.7 x 34.7 cm. Certificate Maximiliaan Martens, Gent, 11.3.2022. Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen was a celebrated painter, graphic artist and tapestry designer who worked at the Habsburg courts. He was probably trained by Jan Gossaert. Around 1525, he began working for the court of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen. In May 1530 he travelled with Margaret to the Diet of Augsburg and on to Innsbruck, where he painted portraits of the imperial family: Ferdinand of Austria, his wife Anna, and their four children. After Margaret's death in 1530, Vermeyen became the official court painter to Mary of Hungary. Four years later he moved to Spain to work for her brother Emperor Charles V and to accompany him on his Tunisian campaign. Vermeyen made many drawings recording the events of Charles' crusade. When he returned to the Netherlands in 1540, he concentrated on portrait painting and prestigious tapestry commissions. This depiction of the Virgin and Child is a newly discovered work of Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen. In his expertise, Maximiliaan Martens dates it to the years 1540-45. The work shows Italian influences and could therefore have been created after a possible, but not verifiable, sojourn to Rome. Martens suggests that Vermeyen may have travelled back from Tunis via Italy following Charles' campaign. The attribution of this painting to Vermeyen is supported above all by stylistic comparisons with his known works. Mertens sees close references to the painting “The Holy Family” in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (inv. no. 683). In both works, the movement of the figures lends the composition a dynamic quality. The Haarlem panel is signed and dated to 1528-29 (fig 1). This early work still displays the influence of Jan Van Scorel, with whom Vermeyen was in contact during his training from around 1523-25. The muscular, somewhat athletic figure of the Christ Child bears witness to this. In the present painting, the anatomy is more convincingly captured in formal terms, which, according to Martens, suggests a later date of origin. The Child's head is also somewhat rounder, but the facial type remains essentially the same, especially the eyes, nose, and pouting lips. In both paintings, the curly hair is carefully highlighted with parallel brushstrokes in lead-pewter yellow. The elegant movement of the hands of the two Madonnas and their facial features are also closely related. An infrared photography of the work (fig. 2) shows small penitmenti on the left side of the Child's body and on the upper side of the fabric on Mary's lap. These corrections indicate an original composition that was carefully developed during the process of creation. Abb. 1 / Ill. 1: Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen, Die Heilige Familie Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, als Dauerleihgabe im Rijksmuseum / The Holy Family, Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, on permanent loan in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Abb. 2 / Ill. 2: infrared photography, IRR Copyright Ugent, Gicas, 2022.