Maarten van Heemskerck (1498– 1574), Self-portrait with the Colosseum, 1553

Maarten van Heemskerck (1498– 1574), Selbstporträt mit Colosseum, Rom, 1553 IMG

The Netherlandish painter Maarten van Heemskerk (1498–1574) worked in ateliers of Roman painters including Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1484–1546) between 1532 and 1537. He also studied ancient buildings and sculptures, which he recorded in a large number of sketches. This self-portrait from the year 1553 shows him against a background of the Colosseum in Rome, a testimony to the lasting impact on him of his stay in Rome.

Maarten van Heemskerck (1498–1574), Self-portrait with the Colosseum, oil on wood, 1553; source: The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/object/1521, Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de.