REVIEW OF EXHIBITION

Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (New York,Metropolitan Museum of Art, 8 October 201411 January 2015). CatalogueGrand Design. Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry ed. ElizabethCleland. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014. 401pp. with 350colour illus. $65.00. ISBN: 978-030008054.

The Metropolitan Museum mounted a groundbreaking and enlightening exhibitionabout a major, prolific Antwerp artist who has remained largely obscure, in part due tohis principal activity as a designer of tapestries, which so often are kept in storage andare seldom displayed in sets. Among other things from this landmark exhibition, wehave (re)learned that the luxury medium of tapestry, the most expensive and elite artform of its day (along with armour), needs to be placed much more centrally in anydiscussion of the contributions of Brussels and the Low Countries to the visual cultureof Europe.

About Pieter Coecke, born in Aalst in East Flanders in 1502, we now have a muchmore 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 guildmastership in 1527 mark his official entrance into the life of that city, and he rose toserve as dean of the guild in 1537. In 1532, he joined an Antwerp confraternity, followedby 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 fortapestry sets: The Life of St. Paul, owned by King Francis I of France (1533); and The SevenDeadly Sins, documented in the collection of King Henry VIII of England in 1536. Soonafterwards in 1539, the Story of Joshua was also delivered to Francis I.

Coeckes other major enterprise was publication, notably the rapid translation of Ser-lio 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 theceremonial entry of the future Philip II of Spain, which drew inspiration from Serliomodels and Italian designs. Coecke received a stipend as retainer for court artistic serv-ices 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 theearlier major study,1 probably stemmed from an apprenticeship. Both artists share stand-ard figure types of oval-shaped female heads and bearded older men with the exotic cos-tumes 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).

VC The Society for Renaissance Studies and 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Renaissance Studies Vol. 00 No. 00 DOI: 10.1111/rest.12155

(circa 152025) opens the exhibition, the refined early triptych from the collection ofHester Diamond (cat. 1 and Fig. 1). Max J. Friedlander labelled this pictorial world asAntwerp Mannerism and identified the Master of 1518 as a key practitioner.

But this exhibition also showed how much Coecke derived from his contact, possiblyanother apprenticeship, with Bernart van Orley. Here the catalogues major contribu-tion emerges particularly from its drawings entries by Steen Alstijns (who also produceda special issue of Master Drawings on Coeckes oeuvre).2 Both artists shared a fascinationwith Italianate architecture and became major designers of tapestry as well as stainedglass. Also noteworthy is van Orleys own large-scale triptych for Antwerp, an altarpiecefor 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 Orleypassed on to Coecke, such as Italianate structures in the wings (compare to the Romulusdrawing, cat. 3). Another van Orley element, which Coecke only adopted later, is hispopulation of lively, Italianate nudes.

Tapestries, inspired by the model of Raphaels Vatican designs woven in Brussels, ledboth van Orley and Coecke to the Italian High Renaissance. As the Alsteens entry in thecatalogue makes clear (948, no. 21), Giulio Romanos Palazzo del Te in Mantua pro-vided a main model for Coecke after his unsuccessful trip to promote a tapestry cycle forSultan Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul in 1533 (which led to a posthumous cycle

Fig. 1 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Adoration of the Magi triptych, c. 152025, oil on panel, open without frame:104.13 129.5 cm; open with frame: 119.43 172.7 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Collection ofHester Diamond (photo: VC Metropolitan Museum of New York)

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

2 Review of exhibition

of woodcuts of Turkish life; see below). Maryan Ainsworths catalogue entry (98104,no. 22) about the Lisbon Altarpiece vividly compares Coeckes female profiles to Giu-lios, an ideal of beauty that continued into his paintings.

Other tapestry decorations by Raphaels circle, such as the 1521 cartoon by TommasoVincidor (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 Bel-voir Castle (1527; cat. 5; Fig. 2) clearly is the prime version by Coecke. It marks his earlyprofound shift towards Italian concepts of beauty, as does the pre-Giulio Karlsruhe Res-urrection triptych (cat. 9), with its typological wings of the Fiery Furnace at left andJonah at right.

But Coeckes Italianate climax in painting is the massive Lisbon Descent from the Crosstriptych (98104; cat. 22, Fig. 3). Both the resurrected nudes in the left wing and the hov-ering Christ figures at left and right epitomize Coeckes beautiful bodies as essential rep-resentations of sacrality. Another affirmation of this pictorial ideal, only mentioned inthe catalogue, is Coeckes Trinity (circa 153035; Museo del Prado; not illustrated).

The interest in exotic costumes so essential for Coeckes magi got anchored and ela-borated in his series of the Customs and Fashions of the Turks (cat. 45; Fig. 4), publishedposthumously in Antwerp by his widow, Mayken Verhulst. Nadine Orensteins exem-plary discussion in the catalogue both documents and analyses this imagery, surely

Fig. 2 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Last Supper, 1527, oil on panel, 1363 165 cm, Grantham, Belvoir Castle,collection of the Duke of Rutland (VC Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo: Emile Gezels)

Review of exhibition 3

derived from tapestry designs (17686). Atlantes separate the individual scenes, whichunfold with a vignette effect of succession close to conventions of tapestry during thevery 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 eliteimperial patron.) Later, the Habsburgs under regent Mary of Hungary became majorpatrons of Coecke tapestries, as Iain Buchanans forthcoming book details.3

Coeckes Turk woodcuts and his relationship to Antwerp as an art centre raise againthe neglected issue of woodcut production in that city, which was also the major bookpublisher of the sixteenth century. Clearly Coecke (or his widow) did not cut theseblocks personally, but utilized local talents. Several Antwerp veteran printmakers hadalready worked on production of large woodcut suites for the Habsburgs, particularlythose produced for Emperor Maximilian I (d. 1519).4 Among those who emigrated toAntwerp to pursue independent careers there, Jost de Negker had pioneered chiaro-scuro woodcuts as well as elaborate woodcut suites. In addition, the Liefrinck familybecame noted publishers, first of woodcuts (including a woodcut equestrian series pub-lished during the 1530s and 1540s of the rulers and nobles of the region) and later of

Fig. 3 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Triptych of the Deposition, c. 154050, oil on panel, central panel:2623 172 cm; wings: 2743 84 cm, Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga (VC Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga andInstitute of Museums and Conservation, I. P./ Ministry of Culture, photo: Luis Pav~ao)

3 Iain Buchanan, Habsburg Tapestries (Turnhout: Brepols, in press)4 Larry Silver, Marketing Maximilian. The Visual Ideology of a Holy Roman Emperor (Princeton: Princeton Uni-

versity Press, 2008).

4 Review of exhibition

engravings. Though the exhibition made no attributions, the elegant woodcuts ofCoeckes Vitruvius and Serlio editions (cat. 17) show considerable sophistication by theircutters, with subtle regularities of hatching to convey shading and volume.

Among professional engravers in Antwerp who distributed the designs of Coecke, Cor-nelis Bos stands out. (He was briefly active in the city 154044, before he was exiled forheresy). 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 ofdesigns by professional printmakers became an Antwerp speciality after 1550, especiallythe engravings published by Hieronymus Cock, but such collaboration was alreadyinherent in earlier production by highly organized workshops of both woodcuts as wellas tapestries.

The gigantomachy theme reappears in another Bos engraving after Coeckes lostdesign, the Revolt of the Giants. This subject held strong political resonance duringCoeckes engagement with the house of Habsburg, especially in his contemporary tapes-try cycle, the Conquest of Tunis (cat. 70), commissioned for Emperor Charles V by Mary ofHungary.5 Myth was used at court as an allegory of divine rulership, specifically here ofthe Holy Roman Empire and its triumphal struggle against heresy in the form of bothGerman Protestants and Muslim Turks. A similar theme of royal triumph, using muscu-lar body strength, reappeared in the great 1549 Antwerp triumphal, echoed in Frans Flo-riss etching, Victory (1552). Similar imagery persists in Habsburg court paintings at the

Fig. 4 Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Ces Moeurs et fachons de faire de Turcz (Customs and Fashions of the Turks),sixteenth century, woodcut, sheet: 35.53 455.7 cm, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Bris-bane Dick Fund, 1928, acc. no. 28.85.1-.7a, b (photo: VC Metropolitan Museum of New York)

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 5

end of the century, especially those painted by Hans van Aachen for Emperor Rudolf IIin Prague.

Antwerp is often viewed as an independent urban centre, relatively isolated fromwider regional politics before the Dutch Revolt that took place nearly two decades afterCoeckes 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 Ant-werp with her imperial ruler.6 Coeckes international awareness and his links to majorrulers through his tapestries suggest that he made such designs in connection to author-ity, as he sensitively aligned with shifting balances of power among European rulerstowards the Habsburgs. In many respects, our vision of Coecke has been redefined bythis exhibition, directed less at his (chiefly religious) paintings and more toward his volu-minous tapestries and related woodcuts.

Like Hans von Aachen half a century later, an alternate idiom appears in Coeckesimagery a world of human folly and vice. In the exhibition, this minor key was struck bythe 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 Amster-dam Cabinet, Albrecht Durer, and Lucas van Leyden. Coeckes drawing of a Money-changer and his Wife (circa 1535-40; Vienna; fig. 55) also poses the dilemma of the

Fig. 5 Workshop of Cornelius Bos after a drawing by Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Fall of the Giants, 1540,engraving; ink on paper, 32.13 42 cm, Albertina, Vienna (VC Albertina, Wien, photo: Caroline Heider)

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.

6 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 pluckedby three conniving tavern wenches (1529? cat. 8) fully resonates with near-contemporaryimagery related to the wastrel ways of the Prodigal Son, as painted by Jan van Hemessenand Jan Massys; it even predates their own favourite imagery by several years.

What open questions need further investigation after this marvellous Coecke exhibi-tion? Because this presentation focused appropriately on the less familiar but rarerand costlier medium of tapestry and related drawings, Coeckes painting career was nec-essarily represented only by highlights. A full assessment of his painting career wouldencompass 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 Adora-tion of the Magi, that quintessential Antwerp subject, where the kings of the world cometo the city with goods in a perfect, confident Antwerp trope, well analyzed by DanEwing.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 asMassyss works of the late 1520s, contemporary with young Coeckes first forays into mul-tiple versions.

Moreover, certain individual paintings and subjects deserve attention. For example,Joseph and Potiphars Wife (Utrecht, Catharijneconvent; not in catalogue) offers a racy bib-lical story from Genesis 31, whose depiction was new in the sixteenth century; but alsothe subject of a Lucas van Leyden engraving and of Lucass half-length painting ofJoseph defending himself before Pharaohs captain (Rotterdam). This painted imagerivals Coeckes 1527 Last Supper for its complex iconographic references through reliefroundels on the background wall.

Finally, the religious context of Coeckes biblical imagery has now been opened up byMaryan Ainsworths meticulous yet bold investigation (assisted by Timothy Wengert, 4954) into the Protestant implications of some Dutch and Latin texts appended by theartist for his Belvoir Castle Last Supper (cat. no. 5) whose references derive fromLutheran translations. Yet these linkages do not carry over into Coeckes workshop deri-vations, whose viewing context might be far less defined or circumscribed. Perhaps amore intense investigation of the Potiphars Wife painting might clarify this puzzle. Afterall, this too is a scene of accusation, albeit not of innocent Joseph maligned by the deceit-ful wife but rather where innocent Jesus accuses treacherous Judas dressed in identify-ing yellow and marked by red hair. During the first decade of Luthers teaching, even inAntwerp, his publications were widely read; while in the city in 1520, according to hisdiary notations, Albrecht Durer himself asked avidly for new ones from Wittenberg.

The main visual typologies placed in the Last Supper show David and Goliath, repre-senting Christs victory over evil and sin, plus Cain and Abel, embodying the shedding ofinnocent blood. Certainly the secondary scenes of Christ and the Samaritan Woman,where conversion occurs above the waters of a well, and Christ and the CanaaniteWoman (Matthew 15: 2128), where a healing is achieved by faith connected to thecrumbs 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, Jaar-boek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (20045), 27499.

Review of exhibition 7

to sort out more specific, emerging sectarian thought about the Eucharist during thisfirst decade of the Reformation is quite elusive amid swirling controversies.

Like any good exhibition, the Metropolitan Museums presentation of Pieter Coeckevan Aelst showed clearly the artists successive pictorial models in Jan van Dornickes Ant-werp, Bernart van Orleys Brussels, and later, the Raphaelesque Italian idiom of Marcan-tonio 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, wellexemplified in New York through these dazzling, large-scale objects and their prepara-tory drawings. We also experienced the complexity of Coeckes themes, both religiousand allegorical, as well as his versatility in other media, including production of majorprinted texts and even designs for stained glass and prints. How could we have neglectedthis central artist for so long?

University of Pennsylvania Larry Silver

8 Review of exhibition