The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Maarten van Heemskerck·c. 1530
Historical Context
Maerten van Heemskerck painted this Rest on the Flight into Egypt around 1530, during his early career in Haarlem before his transformative journey to Rome in 1532. Van Heemskerck was one of the most important Dutch painters of the sixteenth century, and his Roman experience filled his sketchbooks with drawings of classical antiquities that became invaluable archaeological documents. This early work shows his pre-Italian style, rooted in the Haarlem tradition of Jan van Scorel.
Technical Analysis
Van Heemskerck's oil on panel demonstrates his early style with detailed landscape painting and solid, sculptural figures. The careful rendering of the landscape setting and the tender treatment of the Holy Family reflect the Northern European tradition before his encounter with Italian Mannerism.
Provenance
Heinrich Wilhelm Campe, Leipzig [1770-1862]; his grandson, Heinrich Vieweg, Braunschweig [1826-1890];[1] his heirs; (their sale, Rudolph Lepke's Kunst-Auctions-Haus, Berlin, 18 March 1930, no. 49, as by Jan van Scorel); Mary Harriet (May) Robertson Howard [1878-1933] and Dr. Anton (Tonio) [1873-1941] von Riedemann, Meggen, Switzerland[2]; their heirs, Switzerland. (Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, possibly by 1945 and at least by 1947).[3] (Frederick Mont, New York); purchased 30 January 1952 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1961 to NGA. [1] Ludwig Scheibler and Wilhelm von Bode, "Verzeichniss der Gemälde des Jan van Scorel," _Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen_ 2 (1881), 212, record the painting as being in the Vieweg collection; for Heinrich Campe see Friedrich Winkler, "Die Sammlung Vieweg," _Pantheon_ 5 (1930), 78, repro. 73. [2] Annotations in two catalogues of the 1930 Vieweg collection sale in the RKD Library name the buyer of the painting as Frau T. v. Riedemann of St. Charles Hall, Meggen. Dr. Suzanne Laemers of the RKD kindly provided scans of the catalogues (see email of 25 April 2024 in NGA curatorial file). After Tonio von Riedemann’s death in 1941, his heirs left his villa unoccupied until selling it in 1947, according to Helmut W. Rodenhausen, _St. Charles Hall Meggen: Begegnungen, Kultur, Konzerte_, Meggen, 2012: 70. [3] The painting was in the 1945 exhibition _Meisterwerke holländischer Malerei_ at the Kunstmuseum Basel (no. 87), and an annotation in a copy of the catalogue in the RKD Library, written at an unknown date by Hans Schneider, the RKD’s first director and curator of the exhibition, identifies the owner as the Galerie Fischer. A photograph of the painting held in the Max J. Friedländer archive at the RKD is annotated on the verso by Friedländer with “Fischer Luz[ern]. 1947.” This information and scans of the catalogue and photograph were kindly provided by Dr. Laemers (see emails of 23 April 2024 and 7 May 2024 in NGA curatorial file). [4] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2283. .
