ca 1575/81- Alkmaar- 1652
Titel: De Abdij van Egmond in welstand
Plaats/dorp: Egmond-Binnen
P: 1630
Bijzonderheden: Tekening uit Hovaeus’ “Cronijck ende historie van het edele ende machtige gheslachte van de huyse van Egmond
Claes Jacobsz van der Heck was the most important painter in Alkmaar in the first decades of the 17th century, and one of the founders of the town’s Guild of St Luke in 1631. Based on his age, which is recorded variously in a number of archival documents, he was probably born in Alkmaar between 1575 and 1581. As Karel van Mander already discusses him in his Schilder-boeck of 1604, the actual year of Van der Heck’s birth is probably closer to 1575 than to 1581. Van Mander also mentions Van der Heck’s father, Jacob Dircksz van der Heck (c. 1534-1608), who was a nephew of Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) and owned portraits by that famous 16th-century painter. By profession Jacob Dircksz van der Heck was secretary and steward of the drainage locks water board. Claes Jacobsz van der Heck married Cecilia Arts van Wede sometime before 1606, the year in which the couple’s eldest child was born.
According to Van Mander, Van der Heck trained with the little-known Haarlem landscape painter Jan Nagel. Van der Heck painted mountainous landscapes often with biblical or mythological staffage, as well as topographical views.
Claes van der Heck probably trained his eldest son Maarten, who was named after his famous 16th-century relative Maarten van Heemskerck. Maarten Heemskerck van der Heck, as he called himself, probably worked in his father’s studio until the latter’s death in 1652. Another possible pupil was Caesar van Everdingen (1616/17-78). Paintings by Claes Jacobsz van der Heck are often wrongly ascribed to his cousin, Claes Dircksz van der Heck. Since Claes Jacobsz often signed with C.Heck, Theodor von Frimmel confused him in 1904 with Claes Dircksz van der Heck, a relative who became a member of the Saint Luke guild in Alkmaar in 1635. Although still reoccurring often, this error was already corrected in 1943 by the historian Dick Wortel who reconstructed the lives of the Van der Heck family based on archival documents. Claes Dircksz was probably a painter of little significance since he is only mentioned twice in the archives during his lifetime.
Claes Jacobsz van der Heck specialized in views of the Abbey of Egmond-Binnen which are most often paired with a view of the Castle of Egmond aan den Hoef. Egmond Castle is shown in the distance on the right of the View of the Abbey of Egmond-Binnen, while a view of Alkmaar with the Sint Laurenskerk clearly recognizable, can be seen on the right of the View of the Castle of Egmond aan den Hoef.
Egmond Abbey was founded around 950 by Dirk I, Count of Holland, as a convent, but soon became a monastery for Benedictine monks. The abbey is the oldest in the Netherlands, and was an important cultural centre in the middle ages, possessing a very large library. Egmond Castle was the seat of the counts of Egmond. Under orders of William the Silent both the abbey and castle were destroyed by the troops of Diederik Sonoy, governor of the northern quarter of Holland in 1573, in order to prevent invading Spanish troops from using them as encampments. Both structures were in ruins in Van der Heck’s time, so he obviously based his views of them on earlier images made before they were destroyed. A painting by Gilles de Saen (ca. 1580-1610) now in the townhall of Zottegem, Belgium probably served as the prototype for Van der Heck’s view of Egmond Castle. This painting was property of an Alkmaar church in the early seventeenth century. Claes Jacobz must have seen this painting there. For the Abbey he possibly used an early edition of a print which was in 1630 published in Alkmaar in the Chronyk ende historie van het edele ende machtige gheslachte vanden huyse van Egmondt. One illustration, a simple woodcut shows the Abbey in almost the same composition as in de Van der Heck painting. It also shows the ruins around 1620-1630. (for this book print see Klinkert 2015, p.128)
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