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STRADANUS
The versatile artist Johannes Stradanus, or Jan van der Straet, was born in Bruges in 1523, but found fame as one of the most successful northern masters working in Italy during the second half of the sixteenth century, where he was known as Giovanni Stradano. After becoming a master painter in Antwerp in 1545 he left for Italy, where he initially settled in Venice. In about 1550 he went to Florence to work as a designer for Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s tapestry works. Under Giorgio Vasari he worked on the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, both as a designer of tapestry cartoons and as a painter. During the same period he also worked on various commissions in Rome. Stradanus was a member of the famous Accademia del Disegno in Florence from its establishment in 1563. From 1571 he worked as an independent master, moving to Naples in 1576. He returned to Florence in 1580, dying there in 1605.
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JORG BREU
One of the leading figures of Augsburg Renaissance art, Jörg Breu the Elder (c. 1475/80-1537) was also one of the most versatile and productive designers of woodcuts of his day, especially in the field of book illustration.
His graphic work of the first two decades of the sixteenth century is dominated by the religious images he created for liturgical books by prominent Augsburg printers such as Erhart Ratdolt and Johann Schönsperger. He also made many illustrations for popular vernacular books like Fortunatus (1509) and Barthema’s Vartoman (1515), which exemplify his fluent, economical graphic style.
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SIMON FRISIUS
Simon Frisius (c. 1580 Harlingen-1628 The Hague), perhaps little recognised now, was a prolific etcher and engraver who received great praise from contemporaries for his printmaking skills. In the introduction to his important manual on the techniques of etching, Abraham Bosse cited Frisius first, before Mathäus Merian and Jacques Callot, as the etcher to whom he was most indebted. Frisius was also highly sought after for his talent as an engraver of calligraphy books by such writers as Jan van de Velde I, the author of the most important calligraphy book of the day, Spieghel der Schrijkonste (1605).
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LEONHARD BECK
Born in Augsburg as the son of illuminator Georg Beck, Leonhard Beck (c. 1480-1542) began his artistic career as an apprentice in the workshop of the Augsburg painter Hans Holbein the Elder. Although the focus of his initial training was on painting, the production of woodcut illustrations became Beck’s most important field of activity in the second decade of the sixteenth century.
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JACOB MATHAM
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The critical fortunes of the Haarlem engraver, publisher and draughtsman Jacob Matham (1571-1631) are mainly bound up with the name of Hendrick Goltzius, whose adoptive son he became at the age of eight. Trained by Goltzius, he took over his workshop after Goltzius devoted himself to painting around 1600. Matham’s output reveals Goltzius’s strong technical influence, even if over the years Matham developed a broader and less refined technique. Unlike Goltzius, Jacob Matham served a Catholic ideal by engraving many saints. |
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PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER
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Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525-30-1569) created only one print himself, The Rabbit Hunt, but by the time he made that single etching in 1560 he had produced numerous designs for engravings, which totalled around 70 by the end of his career. It was through the prints after his designs, published by Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp and etched and
engraved by such artists as Jan and Lucas van Doetecum, Pieter van der Heyden, Frans Huys, and Philips Galle, that Bruegel’s work became widely known throughout Europe in his own lifetime. |
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REMBRANDT AS AN ETCHER
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Rembrandt van Rijn was not just a famous painter, he was also of paramount importance as an etcher. He was far more adventurous than his contemporaries in experimenting with the potential of the technique, and his oeuvre is both large and very varied. Even today his work is a benchmark for every serious etcher. This book is the first to take a look at the more practical aspects of Rembrandt's production of etchings. |
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THE WIERIX FAMILY (BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS)
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The three Wierix brothers were among the most prolific of the numerous engravers active in Antwerp in the second half of the sixteenth and in the early seventeenth centuries. Johannes (c. 1549-c. 1618) is also recorded in Delft (1577-79), and probably moved to Brussels before the turn of the century, where he died. His younger brothers Hieronymus (1553-1619) and Antonius II (c. 1555/59-1604) remained active in Antwerp. The majority of the Wierix's production is religious and served the Counter-Reformation. |
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ORNAMENT PRINTS IN THE RIJKSMUSEUM II
HAS WON AWARD
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Our publication in Studies in Prints and Printmaking “Ornament Prints in the Rijksmuseum II, The seventeenth century” by Peter Fuhring has won the annual IFPDA Book award at the Print fair in New York. |
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PEETER VAN DER BORCHT (BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS)
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In spite of their influence some printmakers have been poorly treated by art history and Peeter van der Borcht is one of them. Many of his prints were copied by other artists and there is evidence that a number of his print series were re-issued until way into the seventeenth century. The scarcity of his etchings is probably one of the reasons of him being largely neglected. |
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THE COLLAERT DYNASTY
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The Collaert family was one of the most important engravers and print publishers dynasties actieve in Antwerp in the second part of the Sixteenth and the first part of the Seventeenth century. Their enormous print production counts more than 2200 prints spread over three generations. |
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VIRGIL SOLIS
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The volumes dedicated to the prints of Virgil Solis, introduces the astonishing variety of one of the most prolific graphic artists of sixteenth-century Nuremberg to an English audience for the first time. The first three volumes catalogue Solis' single-sheet prints, which are largely intaglio, and which number just over 1000. The forthcoming volumes on Solis reproduce his book-illustrations. |
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