Two holy bishops

This 1540 panel of two holy bishops, now at the National Gallery, belongs to the tradition of paired saints panels that decorated church altarpieces and side chapels across the Catholic Netherlands. Bishops as saints — typically identified by mitre, crosier, and specific personal attributes related to their martyrdom or miracle-working — were important figures in Counter-Reformation devotional imagery as exemplars of pastoral authority and doctrinal orthodoxy. Van Heemskerck's Italianate figure style gives even these dignified ecclesiastical subjects a physical monumentality derived from his Roman absorption of classical and Renaissance sculptural form. The National Gallery's holding makes this one of the most accessible of Van Heemskerck's religious panel works to British audiences, situating him within the broader survey of Northern Renaissance painting that the Gallery presents.

The panel support enables the precise rendering of episcopal vestments — the mitre's embroidered decoration, the chasuble's brocaded fabric — that distinguishes this work within Van Heemskerck's religious output. The two bishops are arranged in dialogue or parallel stance, their garments differentiated to identify separate individuals. The faces display Van Heemskerck's post-Roman three-dimensional modelling within the conventions of dignified religious portraiture.