Old Master, 1610, engraving, Hendrick Hondius I, Painter Pieter Aetsen, Dutch
By Hendrik Hondius the Elder
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Hendrick Hondius I Flemish/Dutch, 1573–1650 formerly attributed jointly to Simon Frisius and Hondius Portrait of Pieter Aertsen (“Petrus Petri, Longus, Amstelr. Pictor”) 1610 Engraving on laid paper Plate: approximately 20.4 × 12.8 cm (8 × 5 in.) From Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipuae Germaniae Inferioris effigies Signed within the image at lower left: Cum priv. Hh. fecit Lettered below the portrait with the sitter’s name and a four-line Latin encomium New Hollstein (Hondius) 105; Hollstein (Frisius) 149 Christopher Mendez stock label verso Attribution and series This engraving was published in The Hague in 1610 as part of Hendrick Hondius I’s celebrated series Pictorum aliquot celebrium praecipuae Germaniae Inferioris effigies—“Portraits of Certain Celebrated Painters, Principally of the Low Countries.” The volume assembled engraved likenesses of distinguished Northern European artists and helped establish an enduring visual canon of Netherlandish art. The old Christopher Mendez label identifies the engraving as “Frisius and Hondius” and calls it number 30 in the series. Current Rijksmuseum cataloguing, however, identifies Hendrick Hondius I as both engraver and publisher, consistent with the inscription Hh. fecit—“Hendrick Hondius made this”—within the image. Simon Frisius contributed other plates to the publication, which presumably accounts for the older dual attribution and the print’s listing under Frisius in Hollstein. Numbering varies between arrangements or parts of the series: another commercial description identifies the Aertsen portrait as plate 27 of the second part. The safest modern attribution is therefore engraved and published by Hendrick Hondius I, while recording the historical Frisius–Hondius attribution. The Rijksmuseum dates its impression to 1610 and gives the plate dimensions as 204 × 128 mm. Catalog Essay and Analysis Pieter Aertsen is represented half-length, seated before an easel and turning slightly toward the viewer. His heavy mustache, rounded beard, furrowed brow and direct gaze communicate experience and intellectual authority rather than courtly refinement. Hondius surrounds him with the material signs of his profession: palette, brushes and mahlstick rest on the ledge at left, while the unfinished or displayed painting behind him depicts the Baptism of Christ. The inclusion of a religious composition is important. Although Aertsen is now especially celebrated for monumental kitchen and market scenes, he was also a highly regarded painter of altarpieces. Many of those religious works were destroyed during the iconoclastic upheavals of the sixteenth century. By placing a sacred history painting so conspicuously beside the sitter, Hondius reminds the viewer that Aertsen was not merely a painter of food, peasants and market produce, but an ambitious inventor of large-scale religious compositions. The Baptism scene also establishes a subtle relationship between the artist and his creation. Aertsen’s large head and upper body dominate the foreground, while the slender figures in the painting recede dramatically. The arrangement transforms the workshop into a site of artistic memory: the painter survives physically through his likeness and professionally through the work displayed behind him. Hondius differentiates the surfaces through exceptionally controlled engraving. Closely spaced, curving lines model the sitter’s face and sleeves, while dense cross-hatching produces the dark wall and garment. The comparatively open white areas of the bald forehead, collar and cloak give the figure monumental clarity. The strict geometry of the chair, easel and background contrasts with the organic lines of Aertsen’s face and beard. The print is also an early example of the artist portrait as cultural historiography. Hondius’s series did more than reproduce appearances. It organized Northern painters into a lineage of recognized masters, pairing each likeness with a concise Latin inscription praising the sitter’s distinctive achievements. The series contained portraits made by Hondius, Simon Frisius, Andries Jacobsz. Stock and Robert de Baudous; the Rijksmuseum describes its set as comprising seventy-two portraits. Inscription The title identifies the sitter as: PETRUS PETRI, LONGUS, AMSTELR. PICTOR That is, “Pieter Pietersz., the Tall, painter of Amsterdam.” Longus translates Aertsen’s familiar nickname Lange Piet or “Tall Pieter.” The Latin verses may be translated: Learned men admire your colors and vigorous draughtsmanship, And the great pictures produced by your right hand. Tall you were in body, and in forming tall bodies; You, O Tall One, show that greatness pleased you. The poem plays repeatedly upon Aertsen’s exceptional height, his nickname, the elongated figures in his paintings and the unusually large scale of his compositions. A period description of another impression transcribes the same inscription and identifies the scene on the easel as the Baptism of Christ. Hendrick Hondius I Hendrick Hondius the Elder was born at Duffel, near Antwerp, in 1573. Trained initially in drawing and engraving, he reportedly studied with the celebrated printmaker Jan Wierix. He also developed interests in mathematics, perspective, architecture and fortification design. Following travels that included Cologne, London and Paris, he settled in The Hague, where he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in 1597. Hondius became an important engraver, publisher and organizer of printed knowledge. His publications ranged from architectural and perspective studies to portraits and reproductive prints. His 1610 Pictorum aliquot celebrium was among his most consequential projects. The collection expanded upon the earlier artist-portrait series issued in Antwerp in 1572 by Hieronymus Cock’s widow, Volcxken Diericx, with texts by Dominicus Lampsonius. By enlarging the group to include later Netherlandish artists—and selected German and English figures—Hondius fashioned a broader history of Northern European art. Hondius should not be confused with the contemporary cartographer Jodocus Hondius or with Jodocus’s son, Hendrik Hondius II. Pieter Aertsen Pieter Aertsen was born in Amsterdam in 1508 and died there on June 2, 1575. By 1535 he was documented as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. He remained in Antwerp for much of his career before returning to Amsterdam around the middle of the century. Known as Lange Piet because of his height, Aertsen was a pivotal figure in the development of Northern European genre and still-life painting. He pioneered monumental compositions in which lavish displays of meat, fish, vegetables, cooking vessels and market goods occupy the foreground, while a comparatively small biblical episode appears in the distance. These deliberate reversals of pictorial hierarchy invite the viewer to choose between material abundance and spiritual meaning. Aertsen’s compositions were deeply influential upon his nephew and pupil Joachim Beuckelaer and, through him, upon subsequent Flemish and Dutch kitchen...
1610s Old Masters Art by Medium: Engraving
Engraving
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