Landscape with Tournament and Hunters

Dutch painter Jan van Scorel was one of the first Northern European artists to make an extended trip to Italy to study antiquities and the new Renaissance style. This landscape must have been made during his stay in southern Europe as a young artist; the panel is made from poplar, a wood commonly used in Italy. The two aristocratic pastimes depicted, jousting and hunting, were frequent themes of Northern European landscapes, particularly in prints, and Italian patrons were drawn to these extravagant visions of courtly pursuits.

Created in 1519 during the 1500-1550 period, this work belongs firmly within the power & politics tradition. Jan van Scorel worked at a moment when the rediscovery of classical antiquity reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

As Oil on panel (57.8 × 138.5 cm (22 3/4 × 54 9/16 in.); Framed: 72.4 × 152.1 × 9.6 cm (28 1/2 × 59 7/8 × 3 3/4 in.)), the work shows the tool marks and layering choices typical of Jan van Scorel's output in this period — decisions about ground, underpainting, and glaze that a photograph can only partly convey.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Commissioned images like this one were rarely neutral; every architectural flourish argues for authority.

Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago now holds the work, where conservators and historians continue to revisit its condition and attribution. Each generation of scholarship adds a layer to how Jan van Scorel's output from this period is understood.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”