Fascination with Rome: Maarten van Heemskerck Draws the City

Maarten van Heemskerck, Momus Reproaches the Works of the Gods (detail), 1561, oil on oak wood © National Museums in Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett / Jörg P. Anders

In 1532, the Dutch artist Maarten van Heemskerck set out on a journey from Haarlem to Rome. From his five-year stay in the Eternal City, a unique collection of over 170 drawings is preserved in the Berlin’s Kupferstichkabinett. In addition to panoramas and city views, this also includes studies of ancient sculptures and ruins. This outstanding collection is now on display in its entirety for the first time, 450 years after the artist's death. In addition to the virtuoso drawings, which also represent important visual sources on the history of Rome during the Renaissance, paintings, prints, books and plaster casts are also on display.

The majority of the drawings can be traced back to a landscape-format sketchbook van Heemskerck carried with him, along with large-format individual sheets, on his forays through the city, on his visits to art collections, antique gardens and holy sites. He recorded the Roman topography with great care on vedute and detailed studies, shortly before the urban development changes under Pope Paul III. Farnese (r. 1534–1549).

He was the first artist to draw the then still impassable Roman Forum, the adjacent imperial forums and thermal baths, the Colosseum and the monuments on the Palatine and the Quirinal. But he also impressively documented the new building of St. Peter, as well as the Capitol Square before it was redesigned by Michelangelo. The drawings also show world-famous ancient sculptures such as the Laocoon, the Torso and the Apollo from Belvedere, often from unusual, surprising perspectives. Last but not least, he created the first views of the newly emerging collections of antiquities, such as those of the Cesi, the Della Valle or the Sassi.

In this way, van Heemskerck compiled an extensive pool of motifs from which he would draw throughout his life. After his death, the drawings were passed on, first to artists and later to collectors. Individual sheets were resold and most of them were probably glued into the two scrapbooks in the 18th century - along with other drawings by other artists. The core collection of van Heemskerck's Roman drawings has remained together to this day, a unique case in art history. In 1886 and 1892 the albums came to the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett; Since then they have never been exhibited in their entirety.

Numerous loans from various collections of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, but also from important museums such as the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Louvre in Paris, the Princely Collections of Liechtenstein, the Art History Museum in Vienna, the National Gallery in Prague, the State Art collections in Dresden or the Hamburger Kunsthalle enrich the exhibition. Formerly associated sketchbook pages find their way to Berlin for the duration of the presentation and are reunited with their counterparts. The Berlin sheets are supplemented by further drawings and two paintings from the Roman period. Casts of ancient sculptures drawn by van Heemskerck are also on display. Several series of engravings that were created after his return to Holland and take up Roman motifs illustrate how the iconic images of his forays through Rome spread across Europe via printmaking.

The exhibition is divided into three chapters. In the introduction, van Heemskerck's artistic work before the trip is discussed. In addition to the first biographical appreciations by Giorgio Vasari, Hadrianus Junius and Karel van Mander, paintings by Jan van Scorel, in whose Haarlem workshop van Heemskerck worked as an employee between 1528 and 1530, can also be seen, as well as his own early works. These are supplemented by prints based on Roman buildings and sculptures as well as descriptions and plans of the city of Rome, which circulated in Holland and could be used to prepare for a trip.

Van Heemskerck's Roman drawings and paintings are exhibited in the central room. The sketch sheets are grouped thematically so that visitors can discover van Heemskerck's excellent drawing skills as well as follow his walks through Rome. This aesthetic-thematic approach is supported by a special presentation that deviates from the usual wall hanging in framed passe-partouts, in which the sketchbook sheets marked on both sides are staged in an almost free-floating manner in the middle of the room.

The last room is dedicated to the work phase after the return to Haarlem as well as the artistic reception and afterlife of Roman studies. This is another focus of the exhibition, which illuminates the functions of drawings in van Heemskerck's painting and print work.