Jan (1438/41–1516), First Count of Egmond; Magdalena, Countess of Egmond (1464–1538)

The Painting: In The Met’s collection—as in other museums in this country and abroad—most of the individuals represented in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century portraits remain unknown. However, there occasionally exist other likenesses of the same persons that provide clues to their identities. This fortunately is the case for the splendid portraits of Jan, First Count of Egmond (1438/41–1516), a wizened man in his late 70s, and his wife, Magdalena van Werdenburg (1464–1538), who was considerably younger. Both are included in the Arras Codex (Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras), a compendium of fourteenth- to sixteenth-century portrait drawings, made after various works of art probably by Jacques Le Boucq of Valenciennes for Alexandre Le Blancq of Lille.[1] Therein the sitters are identified as “Jehan, premier Conte d’Egmond” and “Magdaleine de Wardemberghe, femme de Jehan, Conte d’Egmond” (fols. 202, 203; Châtelet 2007, p. 240–41). An anonymous portrait of about 1510 represents Jan with the so-called Jerusalem Feather, indicating that he belonged to the Knightly Brotherhood of the Holy Land (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). The same pair also are included as mourners (at the far left and above Mary Magdalen) in a Lamentation of about 1535, perhaps left unfinished by Cornelis Buys and completed by Jan van Scorel (called Jan van Scorel workshop, Centraal Museum, Utrecht).

In fact, there is a fair amount known about the life of Jan, First Count of Egmond. (Giltaij 2008, pp. 157, 159).[2] At the age of twenty-five, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he was knighted. Upon his return in 1465, he joined the archduke Maximilian of Austria and his son, Philip, in an armed attack against his own father, Charles of Egmond, duke of Gelderland. In 1476 he was a councilor at the court of Holland and in 1477 he became chamberlain to Maximilian. He subsequently enlarged his area of jurisdiction as count of Goscum, and in 1484, as mayor of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland. That same year, he married Magdalena, the daughter of Count George and Catherina, Countess of Baden. Jan and Magdalena had fifteen children, eight of whom died young. In 1491 Jan became a knight of the Golden Fleece. He engaged in numerous battles and in 1492 he helped to subdue the rebellious Kaas-en Broodvolk. After resigning as stadtholder in 1515, he died the following year at the age of 77.

The pendant portraits of Jan and Magdalena are befitting of their elite social status and Jan’s remarkable accomplishments in his long and celebrated career. Conservatively posed behind a parapet covered with a sumptuous crimson velvet brocaded with gold and against a green background, they present a staid but self-confident demeanor. Both are tastefully yet extravagantly dressed—he in a black hat and fur-collared black velvet coat, and an undergarment with exquisite sleeves, possibly a black velvet cloth of silver, and she in a black headdress, black robe with voluminous ermine-cuffed sleeves, and revealing a starched white bodice beneath. Jan wears the collar of the Golden Fleece and two gold rings, and he holds a folded paper or parchment in his right hand. As Daantje Meuwissen (2012) recognized, Magdalena’s hands reveal the telltale signs of the couple’s circumstance at the time the portraits were made. The pink in Magdalena’s right hand, which is the traditional symbol of betrothal, is directed downward, as if no longer valid. And the ring on her left hand—so prominently displayed—has a black thread or a black enameled band, which indicates that she is in mourning. Additionally, her rich but very sober clothing—the headdress with the lower cap covering most of her forehead—is probably that of a widow of the early sixteenth century. These significant elements add further meaning to Magdalena’s rather sorrowful expression with downcast eyes. Meuwissen’s supposition is made even more convincing if we compare The Met portraits with the Portrait of Dirk Borre van Amerongen and Maria van Snellenberg of ca. 1510–15 by another North Netherlandish painter, the Master of the Deathbed of Mary (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen; see fig. 1 above). Here the married couple gaze toward each other in a present, lifelike manner. Furthermore, Maria holds a fresh pink upright in her right hand and the gold band on the ring finger of her left hand has no black thread or enameled band as in the case of Magdalena’s ring. Jan, First Count of Egmond died in 1516. These pendant portraits, therefore, must have been made after that date, probably between 1516–20. As such they would have been a testament to the extraordinary life of Jan and a keenly felt tribute to a long marriage.

The Attribution: Max J. Friedländer (1914) was the first to attribute these portraits to the Master of Alkmaar, a North Netherlandish painter associated with the Seven Acts of Mercy dated 1504 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) and commissioned by the Confraternity of the Holy Ghost for the Sint-Laurenskerk in Alkmaar. Later, he cautiously identified the Master of Alkmaar with Cornelis Buys, the brother of Jacob Cornelisz. and possibly the teacher of Jan van Scorel (Friedländer 1932). This attribution and connection with Cornelis Buys were supported by several scholars, among them van Gelder-Schrijver (1930), Hoogewerff (1937), Wescher (1946), Wehle and Salinger (1947), Von der Osten and Vey (1969), Bauman (1986), Konowitz (1996), and Sintobin (1998). Burroughs and Weale, along with Sterling (1932 and 1942), preferred the generic classification “Dutch.” Others suggested the French painter Jean Clouet (Réau 1926) or even the Master of Moulins (R. R. T[?atlock] 1927, Réau 1928, Sperling 1929).
In 2008, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam mounted a ground-breaking exhibition Schilderkunst van de late Middeleeuwen, Vroege Hollanders that brought together for the first time the works attributed to the early Dutch masters. This gave an opportunity for The Met portraits to be placed next to the Seven Acts of Mercy (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) to which Friedländer had originally associated them. On that occasion Ainsworth (2008) and Giltaij (2008) refuted the attribution to the Master of Alkmaar, the former noting that the portraits “have nothing whatsoever to do with the technique, handling, and execution” of the Rijksmuseum panels. These reservations were confirmed thereafter by Niessen (2010) and Meuwissen (2012). The current attribution simply to a North Netherlandish Master, although more appropriate, leaves open the question of the identity of the artist.

Such a striking and evocative depiction of old age as we find in the portrait of the Count of Egmond is rare. It must have been based on a portrait drawing of the man before his death, or perhaps another detailed painting made around the same time. Special attention has been given to the count’s meticulously described face and hands. The painter has used the white ground on which to create a depiction of sagging flesh around the eyes, nose and cheeks with sparingly applied whitish, brown and pinkish hues (see Technical Notes). The paint is so thinly applied that it almost appears like a watercolor drawing. The hands too—the right one showing signs of what must have been painful arthritis—are masterfully painted to convey the thin flesh of old age revealing the veins beneath. The face and hands of the countess, despite the inferior state of preservation here, are equally closely observed but with attention to the woman’s more youthful appearance. Pearly white touches on her pale visage are juxtaposed with pinkish and brown hues, giving her a rather porcelain-like countenance. Equally salient and unusual is the way the gold of the counts’ collar of the Golden Fleece is painted with pinkish-red paint beneath a yellow for the chain. Likewise, for the brocades of the count’s sleeves and for the cloth on the parapet in both portraits, pinkish-red paint is favored in a complementary fashion. It is hoped that the scrutiny of the technique and execution further discussed in the Technical Notes will eventually allow for connections to be made with other portraits that exhibit similar characteristics of style and technique.

Maryan W. Aimsworth 2022

[1] Lorne Campbell, “The Authorship of the Recueil d’Arras,” Journal of the Warburg and Coutauld Institutes 40 (1977), pp. 301–13.
[2] Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, 3, Leiden, 1914, p. 334.

Support: Both paintings were originally executed on single planks of wood with integral frames, meaning each panel and frame was carved out of the same piece of wood (see Frame entry for discussion of their profile and appearance). The portrait of the Count was transferred from its wood support to canvas at some point before entering The Met’s collection. As part of this process, its original frame was removed but fortunately retained, converted to a rabbeted frame, and installed on the transferred painting. The portrait of the Countess remains on its original support with its integral frame preserved. The wood appears to be oak, and the grain is oriented vertically. The reverse of the panel has been planed down slightly—the panel now measures about 4.7 mm thick—and cradled, possibly at the same time that its pendant was transferred.

Both frames are surrounded with metal straps about 2 cm thick, roughly the same thickness as the frames. The metal straps are likely not original but appear to be very old, due to the working of the metal and the appearance of the nails in the x-radiographs, which appear to be handwrought and have an advanced level of corrosion.[1] (see figs 2, 3 above). The hinges on the metal straps do not necessarily indicate their original display; in fact, there is no evidence in the x-radiographs of insets or hardware for hinges on the original frames. Furthermore, the frames are hardly wide enough to allow for such hardware. The panels were not hinged originally, but likely displayed side by side, as pendants, a hypothesis supported by the presence of oxidation material from hardware at the uppermost edge of the Countess.[2] It is possible that the metal straps were installed as a means of hinging the panels together, quite early in their history.[3] The presence of the straps prevents dendrochronological analysis.

Preparation: Both supports were originally primed with a whitish ground. Examination with infrared reflectography revealed a few lines of underdrawing, executed using a liquid medium, in both portraits (fig. 5, 6).[4] In the Count, the underdrawing is most readily seen along his proper right shoulder and the brocaded right sleeve. There are a few fainter lines in his fingers that may also be underdrawing, but none is evident in his face. It is likely that his entire costume was underdrawn and is largely obscured by the paint layers in the reflectogram. Similarly, some underdrawn lines can be seen in the Countess where the painting did not exactly following the preparatory drawing, as in the folds of her white sleeve on her proper right arm and the hem of the black robe on her proper left arm. Presumably, the contours of her costume were all planned in the underdrawing. No underdrawn lines are visible in her face or hands.

Paint Layers: The delicate application of paint and restrained technique is notable in both portraits. The artist appears to have applied his paint sparingly, particularly in the fleshtones, with very controlled highlights and shadows. He used very little lead white, as can be seen in the x-radiographs (figs. 2, 4), relying instead on the white of the ground and creating shading with warmer, mainly brown, hues. To achieve the convincing transitions this required a very light touch with relatively dilute paint. The eyes of the Count are one example of the artist’s sparing and exacting paint application, in which he dragged a tiny brush through wet paint to give the sense of an elderly man’s nearly colorless eyelashes (fig. 7) This precise technique is evident throughout both compositions, as in such realistic details as the white fur lining of the countess’s black robe, feathered with a tiny brush to suggest the edge of the fur peeking out, or the veins of the count’s hands, blue where the flesh is pulled tautly across his bones.

The gold in the portraits, especially the gold chain of the Count’s Order of the Golden Fleece and his gold brocade sleeves, is reddish in tone and was created by using a pinkish-red paint underneath followed by a pale yellow, resulting in the unusual hue. The brocade on the tablecloths in front of both figures was rendered in a fastidious fashion, applying the paint in a grid, with reddish-pink paint for the horizontal strokes and pale-yellow vertical strokes on top (figs. 8, 9). The brocade of the Count’s sleeves was created in a similar manner, however the pattern does not curve to follow the folds of his sleeve, somewhat diminishing the illusion and raising the possibility that the artist may have used a stencil for the pattern.

The condition of the two paintings is quite different as are their treatment histories, however, a skillful recent restoration has redressed the unevenness and quelled the most disturbing issues. The portrait of the woman, although it retains its original support, has suffered abrasion and multiple losses, particularly in her face. The man remains in better condition, and despite being transferred has not suffered significant abrasion or loss. The black passages have sunk somewhat, making it difficult to see subtle details in their clothing, including the brocade on the Count’s black coat.

Sophie Scully 2022

[1] Correspondence in the Paintings Conservation files, which outlines the observations made by George Bisacca, conservator emeritus. Alan Miller, conservator, and Kristin Holder, research scholar, confirmed these observations and offered valuable insight into the history of these panels and frames.
[2] A similar void from hardware could not be seen in the Count, possibly due to the altered state of the frame and painting.
[3] Personal communication with Alan Miller and Kristin Holder.
[4] Infrared reflectography was acquired with an OSIRIS InGaAs near-infrared camera fitted with a 6-element, 150 mm focal length f/5.6–f/45 lens; 900-1700 nm spectral response, 2022.

baron Adolphe de Rothschild, Paris (until d. 1900); his heir, baron Maurice de Rothschild, Paris (1900–at least 1919); [Wildenstein, Paris]; [Kleinberger, New York, 1920]; Michael Friedsam, New York (1920–d. 1931)

New York. F. Kleinberger Galleries. "Loan Exhibition of French Primitives and Objects of Art," October 17–November 12, 1927, nos. 37 and 38 (as by the Master of Moulins, lent by Michael Friedsam).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Michael Friedsam Collection," November 15, 1932–April 9, 1933, no catalogue.

Amsterdam. Rijksmuseum. "Drie eeuwen portret in Nederland," June 29–October 5, 1952, nos. 98–99.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Dutch Couples: Pair Portraits by Rembrandt and his Contemporaries," January 23–March 5, 1973, no. 3.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 22, 1998–February 21, 1999, no. 37.

Rotterdam. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. "Schilderkunst van de late Middleleeuwen: Vroege Hollanders," February 16–May 25, 2008, no. 22.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Jewelry: The Body Transformed," November 12, 2018–February 24, 2019, unnumbered cat. (32.100.122 only; colorpl. 117).

Max J. Friedländer. "Kleine Studienergebnisse." Kunstchronik 26 (October 1914), col. 50, on the basis of drawings in the Recueil d'Arras [Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras, fols. 202 and 203] identifies the sitters in these portraits as the Count and Countess of Egmond; dates them shortly before the Count's death in 1516 and ascribes them to the Master of Alkmaar, comparing them with his "Seven Mercies" [now Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam], dated 1504.

Max J. Friedländer. "Der Meister von Alkmaar." Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft 12 (1919), pp. 173–74.

Louis Réau. "Une collection de primitifs français en Amérique." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 13 (January 1926), pp. 11–12, ill. (the Count), identifies the male portrait as "Guillaume de Montmorency" by Jean Clouet.

Max J. Friedländer. "Kunstpflege in Amerika." Der Cicerone 19 (1927), p. 734, observes that in the 1927 catalogue of the Exhibition of French Primitives these portraits are attributed to the Master of Moulins and that he [Friedländer] is mistakenly put forward as the source for this attribution.

R. R. T[?atlock]. "An American Exhibition of French Primitives." Burlington Magazine 51 (1927), ill. opp. p. 192, pls. 1a and 1c, illustrates the portraits as works by the Master of Moulins.

Louis Réau in The Michael Friedsam Collection. [completed 1928], pp. 204, 206, as "Portrait of an Old Man" and "Portrait of a Woman" by the Master of Moulins, but notes that an attribution to Jean Clouet might also be maintained.

E. M. Sperling. Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Flemish Primitives. Exh. cat., F. Kleinberger Galleries, Inc., New York. New York, 1929, attributes them to the Master of Moulins and states erroneously that Friedländer identified them as works by him; notes that the Count wears the Order of the Golden Fleece.

N. F. van Gelder–Schrijver. "De Meester van Alkmaar." Oud-Holland 47 (1930), pp. 105–9, 121, ill. (the portraits and the drawings in the Recueil d'Arras), dates them about 1508–10, accepting Friedländer's attribution to the Master of Alkmaar and his identification of the sitters.

Bryson Burroughs and Harry B. Wehle. "The Michael Friedsam Collection: Paintings." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 27, section 2 (November 1932), pp. 25–26, call the painter Dutch and mention contemporary portraits of the couple in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam [nos. A 1547 and A 1548].

Max J. Friedländer. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 10, Lucas van Leyden und andere Holländische Meister seiner Zeit. Berlin, 1932, pp. 35, 40–41, 126, no. 59, pl. 31, notes that the Count, who looks about 70 years old, received the order of the Golden Fleece from Philip the Handsome in 1491 and concludes that the portraits must date somewhat after 1504; remarks that the artist's older male subjects seem generally to share the "mean and rascally nature" of the Count's portrait and that our panel should not therefore be seen as an example of remarkable powers of characterization; cautiously suggests that the Master of Alkmaar may be identifiable with Cornelis Buys, perhaps a brother of Jacob Cornelisz., and Jan van Scorel's first teacher; notes that according to early sources the Egmond van der [sic for "de"] Nyenborg family [governors of the castle of Nyenburg for the count of Egmond, but not his blood relations] were patrons of Buys.

G. J. Hoogewerff. De noord-nederlandsche schilderkunst. Vol. 2, The Hague, 1937, pp. 411–14, 416, ill., dates the portraits 1500–1505, and attributes them to Cornelis Buys "of Alkmaar".

Charles Sterling. La peinture française: Les peintres du moyen age. Paris, 1942, p. 65, no. 44, rejects Réau's attribution of the Count to Jean Clouet [see Ref. Réau 1926] and the later attribution of the pair to the Master of Moulins; considers our portraits Dutch works from close to the end of the 15th century.

P. Wescher. "Jan Scorel und die beiden Cornelis Buys, der Ältere und der Jüngere." Oud-Holland 61 (1946), pp. 84, 86, 94, erroneously identifies the memorial painting mentioned by old sources as begun by Cornelis Buys for the Egmond van de Nyenborg family [employed by but not related to the Egmond family] and completed by his pupil Jan van Scorel, with a Lamentation in a Dutch private collection [now Centraal Museum, Utrecht]; identifies at the far left of the panel, a portrait of Jan of Egmond that closely follows the Count's appearance in our portrait; concludes that the artist who "began" this work and painted our portraits must be Cornelis Buys the Elder.

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings. New York, 1947, pp. 103–5, ill., as probably painted not long before the Count's death in 1516.

Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 37, Leipzig, 1950, p. 11.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, pp. 64–65.

Colin Eisler. "Erik Larsen, Les primitifs flamands au Musée Metropolitain de New York, 1960." Art Bulletin 46 (March 1964), p. 104.

Gert von der Osten and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Baltimore, 1969, p. 163, consider the Master of Alkmaar identical either with Cornelis Buys the Elder, active about 1490–1524 at Alkmaar, or with Pieter Gerritsz., who had been at Alkmaar and Haarlem since 1502 and died at Harlem in 1540; observe that the Master belonged to the Haarlem school before Mostaert developed it.

Max J. Friedländer et al. Early Netherlandish Painting. Vol. 10, Lucas van Leyden and other Dutch Masters of his Time. New York, 1973, pp. 25, 27–28, 75, no. 59, pl. 39.

Lorne Campbell. Unpublished text for MMA Bulletin. 1981.

Guy Bauman. "Early Flemish Portraits, 1425–1525." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 43 (Spring 1986), p. 34, suggests that these portraits, like Memling's "Portrait of a Man" [14.40.648] and its pendant in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, show the sitters' "desire near life's end to commision portraits of themselves that document a long and presumably successful marriage," adding that "such paired paintings fostered a sense of family history".

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 263, ill.

Ellen Konowitz in The Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. Vol. 20, New York, 1996, p. 615, dates our portraits after 1504; observes that the Master of Alkmaar is generally identified with Cornelis Buys the Elder, active in Alkmaar between 1490 and 1524; considers him unlikely to be the Haarlem painter Pieter Gerritsz., since the latter was probably active until 1540, and works ascribed to the Master of Alkmaar do not seem later than about 1515.

Paul Huvenne in La pittura nei Paesi Bassi. Ed. Bert W. Meijer. Milan, 1997, vol. 1, p. 174, figs. 144–45 (color).

Véronique Sintobin in From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1998, pp. 185–86, no. 37, ill. (color), dates the portraits about 1510.

Cyriel Stroo et al. The Flemish Primitives: Catalogue of Early Netherlandish Painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Vol. 3, The Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Bouts, Gerard David, Colijn de Coter and Goossen van der Weyden Groups. Brussels, 2001, p. 82 n. 19, note that a similar type of hat is worn by the donor figure in Hieronymus Bosch's Crucifixion with a Donor and Saint Peter (Musées Royaux), which they date about 1490.

Albert Châtelet. Visages d'antan: Le Recueil d'Arras. Lathuile, France, 2007, p. 241, ill., as by "Cornélis Buys (?)".

Jeroen Giltaij et al. in Schilderkunst van de late Middeleeuwen: Vroege Hollanders. Ed. Friso Lammertse and Jeroen Giltaij. Exh. cat., Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Rotterdam, 2008, pp. 151, 157–59, no. 22, ill. (color), does not see a convincing relationship between our portraits and the Seven Acts of Mercy in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Maryan W. Ainsworth. E-mail to Everett Fahy. June 2, 2008, notes that on the occasion of the 2008 "Vroege Hollanders" exhibition in Rotterdam she was able to see our portraits beside the panels representing the "Seven Acts of Mercy" from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and discuss their attribution with other specialists; concludes that our panels "have nothing whatsoever to do with the technique, handling, and execution" of the panels in the Rijksmuseum.

Judith Niessen. "The Master of Alkmaar and His Workshop: A Reconsideration." Oud-Holland 123 (December 2010), pp. 293–94, ill. p. 295.

Daantje Meuwissen. "Post obitum: Hoe herken je een postuum portret?" Face Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries, Liber Amicorum Presented to Rudolf E. O. Ekkart on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Leiden, 2012, pp. 37–41, 43–44, figs. 2–3 (color), suggests that the male portrait was painted posthumously as a commemoration of the deceased for close kin.

Maryan W. Ainsworth. "Hugo van der Goes and Portraiture." The Primacy of the Image in Northern European Art, 1400–1700: Essays in Honor of Larry Silver. Ed. Debra Taylor Cashion et al. Leiden, 2017, p. 29.

Hannah Korn in Jewelry: The Body Transformed. Ed. Melanie Holcomb. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, pp. 143, 267, colorpl. 117 (32.100.122 only).

Lisa Monnas. E-mail to Maryan Ainsworth. July 25, 2022, discusses the brocades of the cloth on the parapet of the two portraits and the sleeves of the count’s costume.

The engaged frames, two halves of a diptych, are from the Northern Netherlandish region and date to after 1516 (see figs. 10–13 above). The arched frames are a provincial Gothic style and made of oak. An astragal sight edge lies within a hollow which rises to a flat fillet at the top edge except across the angled sill at the base. Later gesso and water gilding decorates the arch while the fillet at the top edge is painted black. The later paint coating may conceal a marbled paint surface.

Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2016; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files