ANTIQUES AND FINE ARTS, INCLUDING AFRICAN
Lot 182:
Very important compendium of 140 engravings by the Wieirx brothers, XVI – XVII centuries. Measurements: 31 x 22 cm, with leather cover. Hyeronymus Wierix He began as an engraver early, reproducing prints by Albrecht Dürer; one of Saint Sebastian tied to the tree is usually dated to around 1565, when Wierix was just 12 years old. Later he would copy with excellent quality other engravings by Dürer such as Saint Jerome in the cell, Nemesis, Melancholy and The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve). In 1570 he began to work for Cristóbal Plantino, taking charge of opening part of the intaglio plates that illustrate the Humanae salutis monumenta by Benito Arias Montano, with whom he also collaborated on the Biblia Regia and on some other minor work, despite the bad reputation of the Wierix brothers, especially Hieronymus, accused of leading a disorderly life, with frequent labor breaches and delivered to alcohol. In 1573 he was admitted as a teacher in the guild of San Lucas in his native city. Later, in 1579-1580, he spent a few months in prison for an incident in a tavern in which a woman was killed. It is possible that for this reason he broke up with Plantino, at least temporarily, after the publisher was forced to pay his bail, since in a famous letter he complained bitterly that Wierix worked only the time he needed to earn some money and then spend it. in the taverns, so that later you had to go looking for him, pay his bill and rescue his pawned work tools. Despite this fame, he made a large number of prints, some edited by himself, estimating his work at about 650 prints of his, executed with excellent technique and love for detail, but mostly on other people’s compositions. His subjects, although portraits, allegories and some rare mythological motif are not lacking, are mainly devotional. In this regard, his relationship with the Jesuits was especially close and could help straighten out the artist’s life. His association with them began with the series of illustrations for the work of Father Jerónimo Nadal, Adnotationes et meditationes in Evangelia, an ambitious project already conceived by Ignatius of Loyola and postponed several times. In it they collaborated with Bernardino Passeri, author of a good part of the drawings, the three Wierix brothers with Adriaen Collaert and other engravers and painters, although Hieronymus was the one who corresponded the greatest number, signing 65 of the 154 prints of which the construction site, finally published in Antwerp in 1593, without Nadal’s text and without the printer’s name, under the title Evangelicae historiae imagines. Johan Wieirix, older brother of fellow engravers Hieronymus and Antonius, his father Anton could have been a painter, although he is occasionally recorded as a cabinetmaker. He began as an engraver early on, reproducing prints by Albrecht Dürer. The large horse, an inverted reproduction of the Durerian model, dated 1564, bears the inscription “AE[tas] 15” on the top. From 1570 he began to work for the printer Cristóbal Plantino, sharing with Abraham de Bruyn and his brother Hieronymus the making of the intaglio engravings that illustrate the Humanae salutis monumenta by Benito Arias Montano, with whom he also collaborated on the Bible. Royal. because he had abandoned the job so it would be necessary to “compel him even by justice to either finish it or return it as it is.” He worked at the same time as Plantino for other publishers and printers. Most of the engravings of the first edition of the portraits of Dutch and Flemish artists with epigrams by Dominicus Lampsonius, collected under the title Pictorum aliquot Germaniae Inferioris Effigies, a work printed by the widow of Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp, 1572. In the same year he was admitted as a member of the guild of St. Luke in his native city, where he is registered until 1594, with some interruption from 1575 to 1579 in which he resided for some time in Delft alternating, perhaps, with stays in Antwerp. With his brothers Hieronymus and Antonius, 1 It is probable that he trained as an engraver with his brother Hieronymus, who signed some of Antonius’ prints as publisher. Active from at least 1579, he was registered with the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1590-1591. His son, Antonius Wierix III (1596-1624), was also an engraver, making it difficult to distinguish his works. Adrian Collaert (Antwerp, ca. 1560-1618). Son of the engraver Hans Collaert and Anna van der Heijden, and older brother of Jan Collaert, he was born in Antwerp. In 1580 he was admitted as a teacher in the guild of San Lucas. From 1581 is his first known work: the engravings of the series Septem planetae / Septem hominis aetatibus responders, allegories of the planets and the corresponding ages on drawings by Marten de Vos edited by Gerard deJode. His production, of correct although somewhat dry drawing, covers religious and allegorical themes, but also animals and some landscape, both on his own drawings and on other people’s drawings, among others by Joos de Momper and Hendrick Goltzius. He died in Antwerp on June 29, 1618.
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