On the Trail of Antiquity: Maarten van Heemskerck Draws Rome

Hans-Ulrich Kessler (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Bode-Museum)

The museum grant was used for the academic preparation of the exhibition project Der Antike auf der Spur. Maarten van Heemskerck zeichnet Rom (On the Trail of Antiquity. Maarten van Heemskerck Draws Rome) (working title), which is being organized by the Kupferstichkabinett of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in cooperation with the Berlin Sculpture Collection and the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome. The exhibition will take place in the summer of 2024 in the Staatliche Museen’s special exhibition hall at the Berlin Kulturforum. 
At the center of the exhibition are Van Heemskerck’s two so-called Roman Sketchbooks, which are held by the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett. The drawings they contain are among the oldest and most valuable visual sources of the Eternal City. An urgently needed conservation measure now makes it possible for the first time to show the 66 sheets of the first volume with its approximately 130 drawings in their entirety - in the exciting context of his paintings and prints inspired by the Roman drawings as well as in juxtaposition with a focussed selection of ancient scupltures (plaster casts).
During my stay, I was also able to carry out the necessary on-site research for my essay “Rome and Antiquity in Maarten van Heemskerck’s later painterly work.” Using the Berlin panel Momus Criticizes the Works of the Gods, a theme that derives from an episode in Lucian’s Hermotimus and – in contrast to literature - remains unique in the visual arts, the historical background and the scholarly, humanist environment of the Dutch artist are illuminated. The humanist Hadrianius Junius and the collector and patron Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle are among the most colorful personalities in this context, whose intellectual exchange also had a formative influence on other paintings by Maarten van Heemskerck that will be included in the exhibition.