MuseoMag: MuseoMag 2022_02

MuseoMag 2022_02

Metadata

Periodical

Title:: MuseoMag

Periodical volume

Title:: MuseoMag 2022_02

Article

Title:: Reunited after 150 years: Adriaen and Maria van Leyden, husband and wife, find each other again at the MNHA

8 museomag 02 ‘ 2022 © éric chenal REUNITED AFTER 150 YEARS (1/2) ADRIAEN AND MARIA VAN LEYDEN, HUSBAND AND WIFE, FIND EACH OTHER AGAIN AT THE MNHA It was exactly 150 years ago since they had seen each other: two new faces among the Luxembourg Old Masters. How they came to be there is actually a very special story, which I am pleased to tell you here. As part of an exhibition project, I was looking for good portraits of the Flemish painter Nicolas Neufchâtel, one of the most important painters of the late Renaissance. He was trained in Antwerp but fled to Nuremberg because of his Protestant beliefs, where he became a famous portrait painter from 1560 onwards. The search had earlier revealed Neufchâtel’s impressive portrait of Valentin Kötzler, which could be purchased for the MNHA. From the distant past, when I was curator of the municipal collection of Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, I remembered a portrait exhibition at which a large number of the external loans came from Zypendaal Castle near Arnhem. When I decided to consult that castle’s collection files, looking for por- traits from Neufchâtel’s era, I came across a painting that I immediately recognized as a copy after a work owned by one of the leading art dealers specializing in old portraits, Mark Weiss in London. I had seen the characteristic man with the red beard in his presenta- tion at the European art fair TEFAF in Maastricht in the recent past. It was certainly the same man, except that the copy was clearly of a much lower artistic quality than the original, was probably painted over a century and a half later, and showed only one hand instead of two as in the original. TWO COPIES DISCOVERED IN A CASTLE There was another important difference. A family crest was painted in the top left corner and the file on the painting gave information about the provenance that, all in all, made it possible to identify the man depicted. Whereas the model with Mark Weiss had no name, the copy after that original now offered a key to unlock the man’s true identity. It was also exciting that, in addi- Willem Key (1516-1568), Mr. Adriaen Dircksz van Leyden (c.1510/20-1562), baron of the Holy Roman Empire, c. 1560, MHNA, Luxem- bourg & Willem Key (1516-1568), Maria Gerritsdr van Leyden, née van Loo (1524/25-1562), c. 1560, Private collection, Amsterdam.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: MuseoMag 2022_02

Periodical

Periodical volume

Article

Table of contents

Downloads

Full record

This page

Image fragment

Formats and links

Formats

Links

Cite

Full record

This page