Renaissance Studies Vol. 00 No.

00

DOI: 10.1111/rest.12155

REVIEW OF EXHIBITION
Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (New York,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8 October 201411 January 2015). Catalogue
Grand Design. Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry ed. Elizabeth
Cleland. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014. 401pp. with 350
colour illus. $65.00. ISBN: 978-030008054.
The Metropolitan Museum mounted a groundbreaking and enlightening exhibition
about a major, prolific Antwerp artist who has remained largely obscure, in part due to
his principal activity as a designer of tapestries, which so often are kept in storage and
are seldom displayed in sets. Among other things from this landmark exhibition, we
have (re)learned that the luxury medium of tapestry, the most expensive and elite art
form of its day (along with armour), needs to be placed much more centrally in any
discussion of the contributions of Brussels and the Low Countries to the visual culture
of Europe.
About Pieter Coecke, born in Aalst in East Flanders in 1502, we now have a much
more reliable time line and sense of career. His first wife, Ann Mertens van Dornicke,
links the painter early to the artist identified as the Master of 1518, Jan van Dornicke,
but Coecke was already widowed by the end of 1526. His Antwerp citizenship and guild
mastership in 1527 mark his official entrance into the life of that city, and he rose to
serve as dean of the guild in 1537. In 1532, he joined an Antwerp confraternity, followed
by his delivery of a stained glass Nicholas window to the Church of Our Lady in 1537.
But already in the 1530s, Coeckes other career track crystallized around his designs for
tapestry sets: The Life of St. Paul, owned by King Francis I of France (1533); and The Seven
Deadly Sins, documented in the collection of King Henry VIII of England in 1536. Soon
afterwards in 1539, the Story of Joshua was also delivered to Francis I.
Coeckes other major enterprise was publication, notably the rapid translation of Serlio and Vitruvius into both French and Dutch for Antwerp presses from 1539 onwards.
He also published the great 1549 Triumph of Antwerp, the illustrated programme for the
ceremonial entry of the future Philip II of Spain, which drew inspiration from Serlio
models and Italian designs. Coecke received a stipend as retainer for court artistic services from Regent Mary of Hungary as early as 1543. He died in Brussels in 1550.
From these documents, some questions are receiving clearer answers. First of all,
Coeckes relationship to the Master of 1518, already posited by Georges Marlier in the
earlier major study,1 probably stemmed from an apprenticeship. Both artists share standard figure types of oval-shaped female heads and bearded older men with the exotic costumes and architecture for biblical subjects, particularly the Adoration of the Magi,
churned out by efficient workshop assembly lines. The touchstone Coecke Adoration
1

Georges Marlier, Pierre Coecke dAlost (Brussels: Editions Robert Fink, 1966).
C The Society for Renaissance Studies and 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
V

Review of exhibition

Fig. 1 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Adoration of the Magi triptych, c. 152025, oil on panel, open without frame:
104.1 3 129.5 cm; open with frame: 119.4 3 172.7 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection of
C Metropolitan Museum of New York)
Hester Diamond (photo: V

(circa 152025) opens the exhibition, the refined early triptych from the collection of
Hester Diamond (cat. 1 and Fig. 1). Max J. Friedlander labelled this pictorial world as
Antwerp Mannerism and identified the Master of 1518 as a key practitioner.
But this exhibition also showed how much Coecke derived from his contact, possibly
another apprenticeship, with Bernart van Orley. Here the catalogues major contribution emerges particularly from its drawings entries by Steen Alstijns (who also produced
a special issue of Master Drawings on Coeckes oeuvre).2 Both artists shared a fascination
with Italianate architecture and became major designers of tapestry as well as stained
glass. Also noteworthy is van Orleys own large-scale triptych for Antwerp, an altarpiece
for the guild of almoners, combining the Last Judgment with the Seven Acts of Mercy
(1525; not in catalogue). Here we find many characteristic elements that van Orley
passed on to Coecke, such as Italianate structures in the wings (compare to the Romulus
drawing, cat. 3). Another van Orley element, which Coecke only adopted later, is his
population of lively, Italianate nudes.
Tapestries, inspired by the model of Raphaels Vatican designs woven in Brussels, led
both van Orley and Coecke to the Italian High Renaissance. As the Alsteens entry in the
catalogue makes clear (948, no. 21), Giulio Romanos Palazzo del Te in Mantua provided a main model for Coecke after his unsuccessful trip to promote a tapestry cycle for
Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul in 1533 (which led to a posthumous cycle

Stijn Alsteens, The Drawings of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Master Drawings 52 (2014), 275362.

Review of exhibition

Fig. 2 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Last Supper, 1527, oil on panel, 136 3 165 cm, Grantham, Belvoir Castle,
C Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo: Emile Gezels)
collection of the Duke of Rutland (V

of woodcuts of Turkish life; see below). Maryan Ainsworths catalogue entry (98104,
no. 22) about the Lisbon Altarpiece vividly compares Coeckes female profiles to Giulios, an ideal of beauty that continued into his paintings.
Other tapestry decorations by Raphaels circle, such as the 1521 cartoon by Tommaso
Vincidor (1521; cat. fig. 60) influenced the signature painting composition by Coecke,
the Last Supper. Uniquely on show and an exhibition highlight, his dated example in Belvoir Castle (1527; cat. 5; Fig. 2) clearly is the prime version by Coecke. It marks his early
profound shift towards Italian concepts of beauty, as does the pre-Giulio Karlsruhe Resurrection triptych (cat. 9), with its typological wings of the Fiery Furnace at left and
Jonah at right.
But Coeckes Italianate climax in painting is the massive Lisbon Descent from the Cross
triptych (98104; cat. 22, Fig. 3). Both the resurrected nudes in the left wing and the hovering Christ figures at left and right epitomize Coeckes beautiful bodies as essential representations of sacrality. Another affirmation of this pictorial ideal, only mentioned in
the catalogue, is Coeckes Trinity (circa 153035; Museo del Prado; not illustrated).
The interest in exotic costumes so essential for Coeckes magi got anchored and elaborated in his series of the Customs and Fashions of the Turks (cat. 45; Fig. 4), published
posthumously in Antwerp by his widow, Mayken Verhulst. Nadine Orensteins exemplary discussion in the catalogue both documents and analyses this imagery, surely

Review of exhibition

Fig. 3 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Triptych of the Deposition, c. 154050, oil on panel, central panel:
C Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga and
262 3 172 cm; wings: 274 3 84 cm, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (V
Institute of Museums and Conservation, I. P./ Ministry of Culture, photo: Luis Pav~ao)

derived from tapestry designs (17686). Atlantes separate the individual scenes, which
unfold with a vignette effect of succession close to conventions of tapestry during the
very same period as Coeckes most intense design of tapestry cycles for royal patrons.
(Indeed, after Francis I and Henry VIII, Sultan Suleyman would have been another elite
imperial patron.) Later, the Habsburgs under regent Mary of Hungary became major
patrons of Coecke tapestries, as Iain Buchanans forthcoming book details.3
Coeckes Turk woodcuts and his relationship to Antwerp as an art centre raise again
the neglected issue of woodcut production in that city, which was also the major book
publisher of the sixteenth century. Clearly Coecke (or his widow) did not cut these
blocks personally, but utilized local talents. Several Antwerp veteran printmakers had
already worked on production of large woodcut suites for the Habsburgs, particularly
those produced for Emperor Maximilian I (d. 1519).4 Among those who emigrated to
Antwerp to pursue independent careers there, Jost de Negker had pioneered chiaroscuro woodcuts as well as elaborate woodcut suites. In addition, the Liefrinck family
became noted publishers, first of woodcuts (including a woodcut equestrian series published during the 1530s and 1540s of the rulers and nobles of the region) and later of
3

Iain Buchanan, Habsburg Tapestries (Turnhout: Brepols, in press)

Larry Silver, Marketing Maximilian. The Visual Ideology of a Holy Roman Emperor (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
4

Review of exhibition

Fig. 4 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Ces Moeurs et fachons de faire de Turcz (Customs and Fashions of the Turks),
sixteenth century, woodcut, sheet: 35.5 3 455.7 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris BrisC Metropolitan Museum of New York)
bane Dick Fund, 1928, acc. no. 28.85.1-.7a, b (photo: V

engravings. Though the exhibition made no attributions, the elegant woodcuts of

Coeckes Vitruvius and Serlio editions (cat. 17) show considerable sophistication by their
cutters, with subtle regularities of hatching to convey shading and volume.
Among professional engravers in Antwerp who distributed the designs of Coecke, Cornelis Bos stands out. (He was briefly active in the city 154044, before he was exiled for
heresy). Stijn Alsteens convincingly associates Coecke with the Fall of the Giants drawing,
reproduced by the Bos workshop as an engraving (cat. 20-21; Fig. 5). Reproduction of
designs by professional printmakers became an Antwerp speciality after 1550, especially
the engravings published by Hieronymus Cock, but such collaboration was already
inherent in earlier production by highly organized workshops of both woodcuts as well
as tapestries.
The gigantomachy theme reappears in another Bos engraving after Coeckes lost
design, the Revolt of the Giants. This subject held strong political resonance during
Coeckes engagement with the house of Habsburg, especially in his contemporary tapestry cycle, the Conquest of Tunis (cat. 70), commissioned for Emperor Charles V by Mary of
Hungary.5 Myth was used at court as an allegory of divine rulership, specifically here of
the Holy Roman Empire and its triumphal struggle against heresy in the form of both
German Protestants and Muslim Turks. A similar theme of royal triumph, using muscular body strength, reappeared in the great 1549 Antwerp triumphal, echoed in Frans Floriss etching, Victory (1552). Similar imagery persists in Habsburg court paintings at the
5
This same cycle gave rise to the current exhibition as an outgrowth of the spectacular 2002 exhibition,
also at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence.

Review of exhibition

Fig. 5 Workshop of Cornelius Bos after a drawing by Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Fall of the Giants, 1540,
C Albertina, Wien, photo: Caroline Heider)
engraving; ink on paper, 32.1 3 42 cm, Albertina, Vienna (V

end of the century, especially those painted by Hans van Aachen for Emperor Rudolf II
in Prague.
Antwerp is often viewed as an independent urban centre, relatively isolated from
wider regional politics before the Dutch Revolt that took place nearly two decades after
Coeckes death. But Margaret Carroll has noted, discussing the gate of St George,
erected for Charles V by the city, that a tangible, if fragile bond was being asserted by Antwerp with her imperial ruler.6 Coeckes international awareness and his links to major
rulers through his tapestries suggest that he made such designs in connection to authority, as he sensitively aligned with shifting balances of power among European rulers
towards the Habsburgs. In many respects, our vision of Coecke has been redefined by
this exhibition, directed less at his (chiefly religious) paintings and more toward his voluminous tapestries and related woodcuts.
Like Hans von Aachen half a century later, an alternate idiom appears in Coeckes
imagery a world of human folly and vice. In the exhibition, this minor key was struck by
the surprising discovery of his Lovers Surprised by a Fool and Death of the late 1520s (cat. 6).
This kind of memento mori has clear parallels in the imagery by the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet, Albrecht D
urer, and Lucas van Leyden. Coeckes drawing of a Moneychanger and his Wife (circa 1535-40; Vienna; fig. 55) also poses the dilemma of the
6
Margaret Carroll, Painting and Politics in Northern Europe: Van Eyck, Bruegel, Rubens, and their Contemporaries
(University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 6673.

Review of exhibition

emerging money economy in burgeoning Antwerp, the earlier topic of Quinten Massys
(1514; Louvre). And Coeckes Rotterdam drawing of a peasant with a hen being plucked
by three conniving tavern wenches (1529? cat. 8) fully resonates with near-contemporary
imagery related to the wastrel ways of the Prodigal Son, as painted by Jan van Hemessen
and Jan Massys; it even predates their own favourite imagery by several years.
What open questions need further investigation after this marvellous Coecke exhibition? Because this presentation focused appropriately on the less familiar but rarer
and costlier medium of tapestry and related drawings, Coeckes painting career was necessarily represented only by highlights. A full assessment of his painting career would
encompass the wide range of his pictures in multiple versions (of widely varying quality),
especially the Last Supper; but also his omnipresent theme and variations on the Adoration of the Magi, that quintessential Antwerp subject, where the kings of the world come
to the city with goods in a perfect, confident Antwerp trope, well analyzed by Dan
Ewing.7 For drawings, we might wonder how Coeckes workshop practice for paintings,
as revealed in underdrawings, compares with his preparatory designs for tapestries.
Scholars have just begun to assess painting workshop production in Antwerp, such as
Massyss works of the late 1520s, contemporary with young Coeckes first forays into multiple versions.
Moreover, certain individual paintings and subjects deserve attention. For example,
Joseph and Potiphars Wife (Utrecht, Catharijneconvent; not in catalogue) offers a racy biblical story from Genesis 31, whose depiction was new in the sixteenth century; but also
the subject of a Lucas van Leyden engraving and of Lucass half-length painting of
Joseph defending himself before Pharaohs captain (Rotterdam). This painted image
rivals Coeckes 1527 Last Supper for its complex iconographic references through relief
roundels on the background wall.
Finally, the religious context of Coeckes biblical imagery has now been opened up by
Maryan Ainsworths meticulous yet bold investigation (assisted by Timothy Wengert, 49
54) into the Protestant implications of some Dutch and Latin texts appended by the
artist for his Belvoir Castle Last Supper (cat. no. 5) whose references derive from
Lutheran translations. Yet these linkages do not carry over into Coeckes workshop derivations, whose viewing context might be far less defined or circumscribed. Perhaps a
more intense investigation of the Potiphars Wife painting might clarify this puzzle. After
all, this too is a scene of accusation, albeit not of innocent Joseph maligned by the deceitful wife but rather where innocent Jesus accuses treacherous Judas dressed in identifying yellow and marked by red hair. During the first decade of Luthers teaching, even in
Antwerp, his publications were widely read; while in the city in 1520, according to his
diary notations, Albrecht D
urer himself asked avidly for new ones from Wittenberg.
The main visual typologies placed in the Last Supper show David and Goliath, representing Christs victory over evil and sin, plus Cain and Abel, embodying the shedding of
innocent blood. Certainly the secondary scenes of Christ and the Samaritan Woman,
where conversion occurs above the waters of a well, and Christ and the Canaanite
Woman (Matthew 15: 2128), where a healing is achieved by faith connected to the
crumbs falling off a table affirm eucharistic efficacy in the presence of faith. However,
7
Dan Ewing, Magi and Merchants: The Force behind the Antwerp Mannerists Adoration Pictures, Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (20045), 27499.

Review of exhibition

to sort out more specific, emerging sectarian thought about the Eucharist during this
first decade of the Reformation is quite elusive amid swirling controversies.
Like any good exhibition, the Metropolitan Museums presentation of Pieter Coecke
van Aelst showed clearly the artists successive pictorial models in Jan van Dornickes Antwerp, Bernart van Orleys Brussels, and later, the Raphaelesque Italian idiom of Marcantonio Raimondi and Giulio Romano. Coecke developed a massive painting workshop,
perhaps along the lines of his experience of van Orleys role in tapestry production,
which he quickly adopted for his own flourishing career as a tapestry designer, well
exemplified in New York through these dazzling, large-scale objects and their preparatory drawings. We also experienced the complexity of Coeckes themes, both religious
and allegorical, as well as his versatility in other media, including production of major
printed texts and even designs for stained glass and prints. How could we have neglected
this central artist for so long?
University of Pennsylvania

Larry Silver