03 — ARTWORK
Self-Portrait
CORNELISZ VAN OOSTSANEN, Jacob · 1533 →
- MEDIUM
- Oil on panel, 38 x 30 cm
- TYPE
- Portrait
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 1000 × 1273 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
Occasionally a painting contains extra information, about the scene itself, for example, or about the artist. This self-portraitThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). by the Amsterdam painter Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen tells us important facts about his life. The note with the date 1533 and the house mark between an I and an A appear to announce that Iacobus Amstelodamensis, or Jacob of Amsterdam, painted this portrait of himself in 1533. It is known from the archives that Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, the person behind the name Jacob of Amsterdam, must have died before 18 October 1533, the date of a document stating that his wife was a widow. That and the date on the Self-Portrait appear to be conclusive evidence that the artist did indeed die that year.
However, it has been suggested that he was dead by 1532, when one of his houses was sold. So 1533 or 1532 - it is not known for sure. On top of that, there are doubts about when the Self-portrait was actually executed. It is very close in style to the paintings that Jacob Cornelisz made around 1525, and he is not known to have made any more after 1526. It is possible that the date was added later, in the year of his death, and that we are looking at a Van Oostsanen who is younger than he appeared in 1533.
There is another panelTerm in painting for a support of wood, metal, or other rigid substance, as distinct from canvas. Until the adoption of canvas in the 15th century nearly all the movable paintings of Europe were executed on wood, and even up to the beginning of the 17th century it is probable that as much painting was done on the one support as on the other. Painters who worked on a small scale often used copper panels (Elsheimer is a leading example), and in the colonial art of South America copper and tin and even lead and zinc were used. On a larger scale, slate has occasionally been used as a support, notably by Rubens for his altarpiece for Sta Maria in Vallicella (the Chiesa Nuova) in Rome; the picture he originally painted was said to reflect the light unpleasantly and slate was used for the replacement to produce a more matt finish. For wood panels the Italian masters of the Renaissance preferred white poplar, while oak was the most common wood used in northern Europe. Many other types were used, however; analysis of the contents of art galleries has yielded a long list, including beech, cedar, chestnut, fir, larch, linden, mahogany, olive, and walnut. In the 20th century cedar, teak, and dark walnut are favourites, and modern painters have also used plywood, fibre-board, and other synthetic materials as supports. in which the same man is seated before an easelStand on which a painting is supported while the artist works on it. The oldest representation of an easel is on an Egyptian relief of the Old Kingdom (c. 2600-2150 BC). Renaissance illustrations of the artist at work show all kinds of contrivances, the commonest being the three-legged easel with pegs, such as we still use today. Light folding easels were not made until the 18th and 19th centuries, when painters took to working out of doors. The studio easel, a 19th-century invention, is a heavy piece of furniture, which runs on castors or wheels, and served to impress the c1ients of portrait painters. Oil painters need an easel which will support the canvas almost vertically or tip it slightly forward to prevent reflection from the wet paint, whereas the watercolourist must be able to lay his paper nearly flat so that the wet paint will not run down. The term 'easel-painting' is applied to any picture small enough to have been painted on a standard easel., painting the portrait of an older woman. It is by Dirck Jacobsz, the couple's son, who traced the head in the Rijksmuseum Self-Portrait and used it for the man by the easel. He then added his mother's likeness, creating an anachronistic scene: a portrait of his father as he probably looked before 1533, and one of his mother as she appeared around 1550.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r8c395aaebaab0f,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Self-Portrait by CORNELISZ VAN OOSTSANEN, Jacob},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/cornelisz-van-oostsanen-jacob-r0b9d7ee3d7704a/self-portrait-r8c395aaebaab0f},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
