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Behind is a mountainous landscape, distinctly Italian, beside her a tree. The head is north Lombardian in character and colouring, the glance of the eyes enigmatic. A curiously winning composition, not without morbidezza. Scorel has five other works in the Rijks. The Bathsheba is not a masterpiece.
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba is conventional, but the Harpsichord Player was sold at Paris as late as 1823 as a Bronzino. Perhaps it is only attributed to Scorel. It is unlike his brush-work. The Painting of a Vault, divided into nine sections, five of which represent the Last Judgment, is a curiosity.
IAN SCOREL, born in 1495, was a pupil of Mabuse, and appears to have been the first to introduce the Italian style into his native country Holland. When on a pilgrimage to Palestine he happened to pass through Rome at the time his countryman was raised to the papal dignity as Adrian VI., and after painting his portrait he was appointed overseer of the art treasures of the Vatican.
At first view this is not clear, principally because this fashion of wearing the hair is unusual in the eyes of a stranger. Jan van Scorel was born at Schoorl, near Alkmaar, 1495. He studied under Jacob Cornelis at Amsterdam and with Jean de Maubeuge at Utrecht. He died at Utrecht, 1562. When travelling in Germany he visited Dürer at Nuremberg; resided for a time in Italy.
Returning to Utrecht, where he died, he painted the picture of the Virgin and Child, with donors, which is now in the Town Hall. A fine portrait by Scorel of Cornelius Aerntz van der Dussen is in the Berlin Gallery.
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