Jan de Bisschop was the son of Harmen Jansz. de Bisschop and Aaltje Adriaensz. van Noort. Jan preferred to call himself Episcopius as he had a strong preference for the latin language. He is assumed to have been an apprentice of Bartholomeus Breenbergh (Deventer, 1598-1657 Amsterdam), though he was a dillettante. Jan studied Law in Leyden after which he settles as a lawyer in The Hague in 1652. He married Anna van Baerle (1615-1676) in 1653. In The Hague de Bisschop held close connections and friendship with the Huygens family, especially with Constantijn Huygens Jr (1628-1697). Together with Jacob van der Does Sr. (1623-1673), Maerten Lengele (1615-1668), Willem Doudijns (1630-1698) and probably Constantijn Huygens Jr. (1628-1697) as well, Jan de Bisschop founded a private drawing academy to promote Classicism.
De Bisschop's most important publications on Claccisism were Signorum veterum Icones (published in 1668-1669) after classical sculptures in Rome and Paradigmata Graphices Variorum Artificium with etchings after drawings by Italian Masters. This second publication unfortunately was left unfinished due to de Bisschops premature death.[1][2]
Jan de Bisschop died of tuberculosis in 1671, after which his drawings and prints were auctioned. The copper plates for his etchings were purchased by Nicolaus Visscher who published a new edition of his graphics (Icones and Paradigmata).
Around 1655 Jan de Bisschop started copying after paintings by 16th and 17th century Masters. His goal was to recreate the original painting fully respecting the artists style and rendering, though translated into another medium with brush and ink on paper. Actually, he was the very first to translate oil paintings into large size washed drawings. During the 16th century this manner of copying was applied but exclusively for copying sculptures and reliefs. His aim was to transfer the paintings as truthful as possible into drawings in black chalk and wash. These drawings often are sources of valuable information and sometimes the only remaining resources for paintings or sculptures which got lost in the past. For instance the drawing with the same provenance which we recently sold to the Rijksmuseum, provides the only known image of a lost sculpture of a bust of Philibert van Savoye (1480-1504) by Conrat Meit (1470/85-1550/51).[3]
De Bisschops' copies were so highly esteemed, Arnold Houbraken even decided to mention him and depict a portrait of Jan de Bisschop in his Groote Schouburgh, 1718-1721.[4]
This exceptionally large drawing is part of a group of eight drawings, which were given to de Bisschop's close friend Constantijn Huygens Jr. (1628-1697). The drawings were kept in the family for about 350 years and were inherited by descent untill they appeared on the private market recently. The drawings show de Bisschop at his very best and depict copies of paintings and sculptures after his most beloved artists like Hans Holbein II (1497/98-1543), Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Raphael (1483-1520), Titian (1488-1576), Giulio Romano (1492-1546) and Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652). Apart from few exceptions de Bisschop copied after the original works of art, which were part of famous collections such as the Royal House of Orange, Lady Arundel and Jan Six.
Contrary to the erroneous annotation by Constantijn Huygens Jr., who gave the authorship to Jacopo Robusti (1513-1594) nicknamed Tintoretto cause of his father who was a textile dyer, the present exceptionally large drawing appears to be a copy after the drawing by Jacopo Ligozzi (1547-1627), The Descent from the Cross with Saint Francis and another Friar in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.[5][6][7]
The late-Renaissance and Mannerist painter Jacopo Ligozzi (Verona 1547-1626/27 Florence) grew up in a family of painters and artisans. Ligozzi succeeded Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) in 1574 and became head of the Accademia e Compagnia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing). After his work for the Habsburg court in Vienna he became one of the court artists for the de' Medici in Florence where he arrived around 1577 on the invitation of Francesco I de' Medici (1541-1587). During the 1590s he executed alterpieces and frescoes for churches throughout Florence where The Deposition in San Gimigniano (1591) was one of his very first commissions. Slightly later he also painted frescoes with episodes of the life of Saint Francis of Assisi for the cloister of the Ognissanti in Florence. Jacopo acclaimed great fame for his drawings of flowers and animals.
The present drawing depicts a rare Franciscan scene of The Deposition with Saint Francis of Assisi tenderly and lovingly supporting the embodyment of Christ in the position in which he will receive the Holy Stigmata after the Ascension.
In contrary to most copies by de Bisschop after the Classics, when copying this drawing by Ligozzi, de Bisschop felt the artistic freedom to significantly enlarge the picture and adapt it's composition after his own invention. Where the drawing in New York and the painting in San Gimignano purely focus on the central theme of the deposition, de Bisschop has enriched the composition with a background of the mount Calvary, highlighting the full Cross under a dramatic sky and a merely blank foregound, which emphasises on the intimacy of this mournful and grievous moment. Where Ligozzi left the background without any details and a more or less dark blurred space without horizon, de Bisschop added a view on Jerusalem with clearly discernable the Anastasis basilica of Constantin on the left.
In every aspect the present sheet is a most exceptional drawing by Jan de Bisschop, regarding it's monumental size, artistic inventions and provenance.
The drawing in New York, preciously heightened with gold is the preparatory study to the painting in the Museo Civico, Palazzo Comunale, San Gimignano.[8]
[1] Renske E. Jellema, Michiel Plomp, Episcopius / Jan de Bisschop; advocaat en tekenaar / lawyer and draughtsman. Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle / Museum het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam, 1992.
[2] Jan de Bisschop, Jan G. van Gelder, I. Jost, Jan de Bisschop and his Icones & Paradigmata. Classical Antiquities and Italian Drawings for Artistic Instruction in Seventeenth Century Holland. Davaco Publishers, Doornspijk, 1985.
[3] Jan de Bisschop (Amsterdam 1628-1671 The Hague), Bust of Philibert van Savoye (after Conrat Meit).
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, 211 x 182 mm.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-T-2019-24
[4] Arnold Houbraken, De groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Kunstschilders en schilderessen... (1721). Gedrukt door den auteur te Amsterdam, 1718-1721. Vol. III, p. 212-213.
[5] Jacopo Ligozzi, The Descent from the Cross with Saint Francis and another Friar.
Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash, heightened with gold; framing lines in pen and brown ink and gold, 364 x 283 mm. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. inv. no. 65.112.3
[6] Jacob Bean, Lawrence Turčić 15th and 16th Century Italian Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1982, pp. 124-25, no. 115, repr.
[7] Jacob Bean - with E. Fischer "Two Drawings by Jacopo Ligozzi." in Festschrift to Erik Fischer: European Drawings from Six Centuries. Copenhagen, 1990.
[8] Jacopo Ligozzi, The Deposition.
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1591. Museo Civico, Palazzo Comunale, San Gimignano.
