“ It was a superstition which still exists in Catholic Holland that a marriage so celebrated would secure the peace of the dead within the tomb.
The works of Heemskerk are still very numerous. “Adam and Eve,” and “St Luke painting the Likeness of the Virgin and Child” in presence of a poet crowned with ivy leaves, and a parrot in a cage—an altar-piece in the gallery of Haarlem, and the “Ecce Homo” in the museum of Ghent, are characteristic works of the period preceding Heemskerk’s visit to Italy. ”

“ Besides these we have the “Crucifixion” in the Hermitage of St Petersburg, and two “Triumphs of Silenus” in the gallery of Vienna, in which the same relation to Giulio Romano may be noted as we mark in the canvases of Rinaldo of Mantua. Other pieces of varying importance are in the galleries of Rotterdam, Munich, Cassel, Brunswick, Karlsruhe, Mainz and Copenhagen. In England the master is best known by his drawings. ”

“ In its absence we have a “Crucifixion” executed for the Riches Claires at Ghent (now in the Ghent Museum) in 1543, and the altar-piece of the Drapers Company at Haarlem, now in the gallery of the Hague, and finished in 1546. In these we observe that Heemskerk studied and repeated the forms which he had seen at Rome in the works of Michelangelo and Raphael, and in Lombardy in the frescoes of Mantegna and Giulio Romano. ”