Self-portrait with the Colosseum

Self-portrait with the Colosseum is a 1553 painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Maarten van Heemskerck in the Fitzwilliam Museum.[1]

Self-portrait with the Colosseum
ArtistMaarten van Heemskerck
Year1553
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensions42.2 cm × 54 cm (16.6 in × 21 in)
LocationFitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

This painting shows the artist in the role of Grand tourist with the Colosseum in the background. It is signed and dated lower center MARTYN VAN HEMSKER AO AETATUS SUA LV 1553. It shows the artist twice; once in bust form looking at the viewer as if to say "Behold the wonders of Rome!" and again as an artist sketching the Colosseum. Heemskerck painted it upon his arrival in Italy whereupon it came into the collection of Anton Perrenot de Granvella (d. 1586). Unlike what the arrangement would have the observer believe, this was not painted 'en plein air' because all paintings were created in the studio until well into the 18th-century.

The image of the Colosseum has been identified with an undated sketch currently in Berlin that itself was a model for Pieter Jansz. Saenredam for his 1631 painting.[2] Saenredam is known to have had in his possession many sketches by Heemskerck that he used as models. A description of the sketches of ruins that Heemskerck made while in Rome was documented by Karel van Mander in his Schilder-boeck, who mentioned the patronage of a Cardinal (presumably Cardinal Granvelle).[3][4] Many of these were later engraved and published by Philips Galle in 1569 as the Clades series, or Inventiones Heemskerkianiae Ex Utroque Testamento.[5]

  • Inventiones Heemskerkianiae Ex Utroque Testamento, by Galle, 1569
  • Colosseum by Saenredam, 1631

References
  1. collection record on museum website
  2. Rome, the Colosseum, cat.nr 79 D 2 fol. 47 recto, Kupferstichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin in the RKD
  3. Het Schilderboek: Het Leven Van De Doorluchtige Nederlandse En Hoogduitse Schilders. Carel van Mander, with notes, 1995. ISBN 90-284-1678-1; ISBN 978-90-284-1678-9
  4. "hadde zijn onderhoudt oft onthouden by een Cardinael, door eenighe recommandatie: heeft ...heel veel dinghen geconterfeyt, soo nae d'Antijcken, als nae Michiel Agnolen wercken: Oock veel Ruwijnen, bywercken, alderley aerdicheden der Antijcken, die in dese Schilder-Academische Stadt overvloedich te sien zijn."
  5. Portrait of Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), 1569 of kort daarvoor in the RKD


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