Born into a farming family in a small village near Haarlem, Maerten van Heemskerck showed talent as an artist from a early age and, after much struggle, finally persuaded his father to let him study painting. He began his training in Delft and afterwards moved to Haarlem, where he joined the workshop of the Italianate painter Jan van Scorel (1495-1562).

Heemskerck himself set off for Italy in 1532 and spent four years studying the landscapes and classical antiquities of Rome. Van Mander noted approvingly that he neither 'frittered away his time nor wasted it drinking and carousing with the Netherlanders, but instead made drawings… of a great many things'.

Heemskerck had a particular fondness for fragments: rather...