Michael Sittow
Encyclopedia
Michael Sittow, also known as Master Michiel, Michel Sittow, Michiel, Miguel and many other variants (c.1469–1525) was a painter from Reval (now Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

) who was trained in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting
Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

. For most of his life, Sittow worked as a court portrait painter, for Isabella of Castille, the Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

s and others in Spain and the Netherlands. He was one of the most important Flemish painters of the era.

Life

Michael Sittow was born in 1468 or 1469 in Reval to a wealthy family. His father was painter and wood-carver Clawes (Claves, Claes) van der Sittow (Suttow) and his mother was Margarethe Molner. He was the eldest of three brothers, followed by Clawes and Jasper.

The origins of Clawes van der Sittow (? - 1482) are not clear - he might have originated from the village of Zittow near Wismar
Wismar
Wismar , is a small port and Hanseatic League town in northern Germany on the Baltic Sea, in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,about 45 km due east of Lübeck, and 30 km due north of Schwerin. Its natural harbour, located in the Bay of Wismar is well-protected by a promontory. The...

 or he could have been of Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

 origin. He arrived in Reval in 1454 and became a citizen in 1457. Clawes was a wealthy man for an artist, owning several houses in the city. He became an assessor
Assessor
An assessor may be:* Assessor , the assistant to a judge or magistrate* Assessor , a senior officer of the University of Oxford* Assessor , an expert who calculates the value of property...

 in the artists' guild in 1479. Clawes van der Sittow married Margarethe Molner (? - 1501) in 1468. She was a Swedish-speaking Finn and the daughter of a wealthy merchant Olef Mölner (Olef Andersson Mölnare).

At first Michel Sittow studied painting and sculpture in his father's workshop, while attending the city school to learn Latin, arithmetic and singing. After his father's death in 1482, Michel continued his studies in Bruges
Bruges
Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

 from 1484 to 1488. It is thought that he worked as an apprentice in the leading Netherlandish workshop of Hans Memling
Hans Memling
Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...

.

Michel Sittow became an independent master between 14881491/92, although he did not become a master in the local Bruges guild. Working as a portrait painter, he travelled in southern Europe, as traits of French and Italian art became apparent in his work.

From 1492 Sittow worked in Toledo
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...

, Spain for Isabella of Castille as court painter
Court painter
A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were often given the office of valet de chambre...

. Isabella assembled academicians and painters from several countries to her court. Sittow became known as Melchior Alemán ("the German") in the court, although letters of Emperor Maximilian
Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor
Maximilian I , the son of Frederick III, Holy Roman Emperor and Eleanor of Portugal, was King of the Romans from 1486 and Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 until his death, though he was never in fact crowned by the Pope, the journey to Rome always being too risky...

 and Margaret of Austria speak also of a painter "Mychel Flamenco" ("Michael the Fleming"), who may have been Michael Sittow. Sittow was the highest-paid painter in the queen's court, receiving a salary of 50,000 maravedis
Spanish maravedí
The maravedí was the name of various Iberian coins of gold and then silver between the 11th and 14th centuries and the name of different Iberian accounting units between the 11th and 19th centuries.-Etymology:...

 a year (Juan de Flandes
Juan de Flandes
Juan de Flandes was an Early Netherlandish painter who was active in Spain from 1496 to 1519; his actual name is unknown, although an inscription Juan Astrat on the back of one work suggests a name such as "Jan van der Staat"...

, the second highest paid artist, received 20,000 maravedis). Sittow collaborated with Juan de Flandes on the series of small panels of the lives of Christ and the Virgin for the queen.

Officially Sittow worked for Isabella until her death in 1504, although he had left Spain two years before and was presumably working in Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 for the queen's Habsburg son-in-law Philip the Handsome, painting a portrait of Philibert the Good, Duke of Savoy
Philibert II, Duke of Savoy
Philibert II , surnamed the Handsome or the Good, was the Duke of Savoy from 1497 until his death.-Biography:...

.

Sittow probably visited London in about 1503–05, although this is not documented. He used to be regarded as the author of the portrait of Henry VII
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....

 (National Portrait Gallery, London), later used as a model by Hans Holbein
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

 and other painters when crafting their posthumous depictions of the monarch, but this is now "discounted" by specialists.

If a portrait in Vienna is indeed of Isabella's daughter Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon
Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

, already widowed by the death of Henry's heir Arthur, Prince of Wales
Arthur, Prince of Wales
Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales was the first son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York, and therefore, heir to the throne of England. As he predeceased his father, Arthur never became king...

 and soon to remarry his brother, later Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

, this would have been painted on this visit. Two other Sittow paintings of Mary Magdalen (Detroit) and the Virgin Mary (Berlin) appear to use the same model, who may also be a younger Catherine, before she left for England. The use of members of royal households as models for sacred figures is found in court art in the Netherlands at this time; however that the three paintings show the same person, and that Catherine is the model for any of them, is not certain, partly because there are no other good portraits of her when young. The Berlin Virgin formed the other half of a diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...

 with the Washington portrait of Diego de Guevara, a Spanish courtier with the Habsburgs, otherwise best known for giving the Arnolfini Portrait
Arnolfini portrait
The Arnolfini Portrait is an oil painting on oak panel dated 1434 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It is also known as The Arnolfini Wedding, The Arnolfini Marriage, The Arnolfini Double Portrait or the Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, among other titles...

 to Archduchess Margaret of Austria, governor of the Spanish Netherlands.
When Philip died in 1506, Sittow lost his patron again. In the same year, he returned to Reval where his stepfather, the glass-maker Diderick van Katwijk had seized his parents' houses, as Michael's mother had died in 1501. Van Katwijk had journeyed to Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...

 in 1501 and offered a property settlement to Sittow that the latter refused. As the local court did not support Sittow's claim for inheritance, he had to go to the Court of Higher Instance in Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

. He won the case in Lübeck, but could not officially register his parents' houses as his property until the death of his stepfather in 1518.

Michael Sittow joined the Guild of Kanut , the local painters' guild in 1507 and married in 1508. Despite being a renowned master in Europe, Sittow was accepted only as a journeyman
Journeyman
A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

 and was required to paint a masterpiece
Masterpiece
Masterpiece in modern usage refers to a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or to a work of outstanding creativity, skill or workmanship....

 before becoming a full master craftsman in the guild. Sittow completed various local orders and worked for the St. Peter's Church in Siuntio
Siuntio
Siuntio is a municipality of Finland.It is located in the province of Southern Finland and is part of the Uusimaa region. The municipality has a population of and covers an area of of which is water...

, Finland.

In 1514 he was called to visit Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, to paint the portrait of Christian II of Denmark
Christian II of Denmark
Christian II was King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden , during the Kalmar Union.-Background:...

. The portrait was intended as a gift for Christian's bethrothed, Isabella of Austria, granddaughter of Isabella of Castille. The portrait that is held in Copenhagen's Statens Museum for Kunst
Statens Museum for Kunst
Statens Museum for Kunst is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen....

 is probably a copy of a lost original or a second copy ordered from Sittow. From there he traveled to the Southern Netherlands where he served Margaret of Austria, the Habsburg vice-regent of the Netherlands.

From the Netherlands, Sittow returned to Spain and worked for Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, jure uxoris King of Castile and then regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of...

, followed in 1516 by the Spanish King Carlos I, the future Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

. When Charles V abdicated from power he took Sittow's wooden sculpture of the Virgin and three paintings with him to his retirement in the monastery of Yuste
Yuste
Yuste Monastery is in the small village now called Cuacos de Yuste in the province of Cáceres in the autonomous community of Extremadura, Spain...

. It is possible that Sittow travelled to Spain in an attempt to recover an unpaid salary from queen Isabel of Castille.

In 1516 (possibly 1517 or 1518) Michael Sittow returned to Reval. In 1518, he married Dorothie, a daughter of a merchant named Allunsze. Their son Michel died shortly after birth. In 1523, Sittow became the Aldermann (guild-master) of the Guild of Kanut. Michael Sittow died of the plague in Reval between 20 December 1525 and 20 January 1526. He is buried in the cemetery of the almshouse of the Church of the Holy Spirit .

Works by Michael Sittow

The name of Michael Sittow was nearly unknown for centuries, until in 1914 Max J. Friedländer put forward a hypothesis that Master Michiel, court painter of Queen Isabella, is the author of the diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...

 discovered near Burgos
Burgos
Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...

, depicting the Virgin and Child on one side and a Knight of the Order of Calatrava
Order of Calatrava
The Order of Calatrava was the first military order founded in Castile, but the second to receive papal approval. The papal bull confirming the Order of Calatrava as a Militia was given by Pope Alexander III on September 26, 1164.-Origins and Foundation:...

on the other. In subsequent decades scholars put together a picture of Master Michiel's career in Spain, the Netherlands and in Denmark, but it was not until 1940, when Baltic-German historian Paul Johansen identified the mysterious Master Michiel as Michael Sittow from Reval.

Michael Sittow specialized mainly in small devotional works and portraits, which sometimes project a melancholy mood. His style is heavily influenced by his teacher Hans Memling and also show influence of the elegance found in portraits by Jean Perréal
Jean Perréal
Jean Perréal -- sometimes called Peréal, Johannes Parisienus or Jean De Paris -- was a successful portraitist for French Royalty in the first half of the 16th Century, as well as an architect, sculptor and limner of illuminated manuscripts...

.
Sittow used translucent layers of paint to achieve highly refined and subdued color harmonies, combined with light effects and sensitivity to texture. E. P. Richardson described Sittow's work "/../an artist somewhat like Van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...

 in a later epoch; a brilliant painter of religious subjects, but of outstanding qualities as a portrait painter. His portraits are among the finest of their time, vivid, candid, crisply elegant and reserved."

Few surviving paintings can be attributed to Sittow with certainty, and there are many problems of attribution around his work. Though his biography is well documented, the only works that can be attributed to him with certainty are two rather atypical very small panels from a large series mostly by Juan de Flandes
Juan de Flandes
Juan de Flandes was an Early Netherlandish painter who was active in Spain from 1496 to 1519; his actual name is unknown, although an inscription Juan Astrat on the back of one work suggests a name such as "Jan van der Staat"...

 for Queen Isabella. The attributions of both the portrait (today in Washington, D.C.) called Don Diego de Guevara (d. Brussels 1520, a nobleman whose family came from Santander
Santander, Cantabria
The port city of Santander is the capital of the autonomous community and historical region of Cantabria situated on the north coast of Spain. Located east of Gijón and west of Bilbao, the city has a population of 183,446 .-History:...

 in northern Spain; valued member of the Habsburg court in Burgundy), and the painting of the Virgin and Child which together with it once formed a diptych
Diptych
A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...

, are nearly certain, as Diego's illegitimate son Felipe de Guavara mentions his father's portrait by Sittow.

Most of Sittow's paintings are not signed and dated – the only painting that can be dated with certainty is the portrait of Christian II of Denmark. There are more than thirty works attributed to Michael Sittow, however, most of them have not been verified as his.

Many of his paintings (mentioned in various documents) and almost all of his sculptures have not been preserved.

List of works

  • Virgin and Child (left wing of a diptych, possibly Catherine of Aragon), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
    Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
    The Gemäldegalerie is an art museum in Berlin, Germany. It holds one of the world's leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th centuries. It is located on Kulturforum west of Potsdamer Platz. Its collection includes masterpieces from such artists as Albrecht Dürer, Lucas...

    , now separated from the other wing, which is the next item
  • Portrait of Diego de Guevara (right wing of a diptych), Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art
  • Virgin and Child (Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum)
  • Portrait of Christian II, King of Denmark (Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst
    Statens Museum for Kunst
    Statens Museum for Kunst is the Danish national gallery located in Copenhagen....

    , probably a copy)
  • Portrait probably of Catherine of Aragon
    Catherine of Aragon
    Catherine of Aragon , also known as Katherine or Katharine, was Queen consort of England as the first wife of King Henry VIII of England and Princess of Wales as the wife to Arthur, Prince of Wales...

    , Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
  • Catherine of Aragon(?) as the Magdalene, Detroit Institute of Arts
    Detroit Institute of Arts
    The Detroit Institute of Arts is a renowned art museum in the city of Detroit. In 2003, the DIA ranked as the second largest municipally owned museum in the United States, with an art collection valued at more than one billion dollars...

  • Virgin and Child with St. Bernard (Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano)
  • Portrait of a Man with a Pearl (Madrid, Palacio Real)
  • Christ Carrying the Cross, Moscow, Pushkin Museum
    Pushkin Museum
    The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....

  • Coronation of the Virgin (Paris, Louvre
    Louvre
    The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

    )
  • Portrait of a Lady (Paris, Louvre
    Louvre
    The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

    )
  • Passion Altarpiece (St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn
    St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn
    St. Nicholas' Church is a medieval church in Tallinn, Estonia. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron of the fishermen and sailors. Originally built in the 13th century, it was partially destroyed in Soviet Bombing of Tallinn in World War II...

    )
  • Portrait of a Man, The Hague, Mauritshuis
    Mauritshuis
    The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Previously the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau, it now has a large art collection, including paintings by Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, Paulus Potter and Frans...

  • Nativity, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum
    Kunsthistorisches Museum
    The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...

    , a version of a lost work by Hugo van der Goes
    Hugo van der Goes
    Hugo van der Goes was a Flemish painter. He was, along with Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Gerard David, one of the most important of the Early Netherlandish painters.-Biography:...

  • Assumption of the Virgin (panel from the small altarpiece of Queen Isabella of Castile) Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art
  • Ascension (panel from the small altarpiece of Queen Isabella of Castile) (Private Collection)

Among works no longer considered to be by Sittow are:
  • Portrait of Henry VII, King of England (National Portrait Gallery (London)), possibly a contemporary copy of a Sittow original.

In literature

Michael Sittow (as Michel Sittow) is the main character in Jaan Kross
Jaan Kross
-Early life:Born in Tallinn, Estonia, studied Jacob Westholm´s Grammar school, Kross attended the University of Tartu and graduated from its School of Law...

' novel Four Monologues on St George . The book is written in the form of a judicial inquiry and explores such issues as nationhood, political exile and cultural assimilation.

See also

  • Artists of the Tudor court
    Artists of the Tudor court
    The artists of the Tudor court are the painters and limners engaged by the monarchs of England's Tudor dynasty and their courtiers between 1485 and 1603, from the reign of Henry VII to the death of Elizabeth I....

  • Early Netherlandish painting
    Early Netherlandish painting
    Early Netherlandish painting refers to the work of artists active in the Low Countries during the 15th- and early 16th-century Northern renaissance, especially in the flourishing Burgundian cities of Bruges and Ghent...

  • St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn
    St. Nicholas' Church, Tallinn
    St. Nicholas' Church is a medieval church in Tallinn, Estonia. It is dedicated to Saint Nicholas, the patron of the fishermen and sailors. Originally built in the 13th century, it was partially destroyed in Soviet Bombing of Tallinn in World War II...


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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