![Marten van Heeskerck - Woman sitting at Her Spinning Wheel [1529]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7535/15667240855_d8c6ac5453_o.jpg)
Marten van Heeskerck (Heemskerk, June 1, 1498 - Haarlem, October 1, 1574) was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem. He was a pupil of Jan van Scorel, and adopted his teacher's Italian-influenced style. He spent the years 1532–36 in Italy. He produced many designs for engravers, and is especially known for his depictions of the Wonders of the World.
In Amsterdam he made a will, which has been preserved. It shows that he had lived long enough and prosperously enough to make a fortune. At his death, he left money and land in trust to the orphanage of Haarlem, with interest to be paid yearly to any couple who should be willing to perform the marriage ceremony on the slab of his tomb in the cathedral of Haarlem. It was a superstition in Catholic Holland that a marriage so celebrated would secure the peace of the dead within the tomb.
[Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam - Oil on panel, 86.6 x 66.2 cm]