Saint Luke Painting the Virgin (Heemskerck)

Saint Luke Painting the Virgin is an oil on canvas painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Maarten van Heemskerck, from 1532. It is held in the Frans Hals Museum, in Haarlem.

History and description
This painting shows a baker in the role of Luke the Evangelist painting the Holy Virgin and Child, with a self-portrait in the background as the artist's muse in the form of a laurel-wreathed poet. It is an example of a fairly common 16th- and 17th-century genre in European painting referred to as a Lukas-Madonna in Dutch. Heemskerck painted it before his trip to Italy for the St. Bavochurch in Haarlem. It is painted with exaggerated perspective, and cannot be observed correctly where it hangs today on a museum wall, because it was designed to hang high up in a church. The painting was cut down and divided in two, and the left and right panel have since been reunited, but the top curved piece that once showed a parrot in a cage has been lost. A full description of the painting and the text on the paper in the bottom left-hand corner was documented by Karel van Mander in his Schilder-boeck (1604).

Inscription lower left on tromp l'oeil "paper": ''Tot memorie is Dese Taeffel gegeven / van mertin heemskerck diet heeft gewracht. / Ter eeren Sinte Lucae heeft hyt bedreven, / ons gemeen ghesellen heeft hy mede bedacht / wy moge hem dancken bij dage by nacht / van zyn milde gifte die hier staet present / Dus willen wy bidden met als ons macht / Dat gods gratie hem wil zijn omtrent / Anno Duysent VcXXXII ist volent 23.May''.