Willelm de Vos

Etching and engraving, circa 1645, signed on plate at lower edge.

A fine impression, printed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, very good condition.

From the Icones principum, virorum, doctorum, pictorum, chalcographorum by Anton van Dyck, printed for the first time in Antwerp, 1645.

A famous and important work, a real monument of the Flemish engraving art of the XVIII century, containing the biographies and portraits of the famous artists Van Dyck had met and with whom he had worked. 

Following the success of his portrait paintings and in the tradition of Italian and Flemish portrait series, Van Dyck decided to organise a print publication containing portraits of the most prominent men during his lifetime, divided into three categories: princes, politicians and soldiers (16), statesmen and scholars (12), artists and art connoisseurs (52). 

The initial idea could have been that Van Dyck would etch the faces (a process possibly learnt from Vorsterman) while others would finish the plates in engraving. Designs were needed for the plates and several drawings and oil sketches (grisailles, sometimes in different versions) have survived. Van Dyck only etched 17 plates himself, while he commissioned others to complete the set, overseen by Lucas Vorsterman I (especially after Van Dyck settled in England in the Spring of 1632). Although this project was started by Van Dyck around 1630, he never saw it completed. 

The Antwerp publisher Maarten van den Enden may have been involved from the start as eighty early impressions bear Van den Enden's address. They are engraved by Paulus Pontius (30 plates), Lucas Vorsterman I (22), Pieter de Jode II (12), Schelte a Bolswert (7), Robert van Voerst (4), Willem Hondius (2), Willem Jacobsz Delff (1), Cornelis Galle (1), and Nicolaes Lauwers (1). It is known that Van den Enden was in debt to Gillis Hendricx around 1644, the Antwerp publisher who must have obtained Van den Enden's plates which he published in 1645 in the first edition of these plates (containing between 100 and 104 portrait plates). 

Hendricx continued to publish these plates until his death in 1677 when they were auctioned off by the St Luke guild (keeping the Iconography plates together). It is not clear who bought these plates but they re-appeared around 1720 when they were published by Hendrick and Cornelis Verdussen in Antwerp.

"Sir Anthony Van Dyck stands out as the solitary great etcher of the school. Portrait etching had scarcely had an existence before his time, and in his work it suddenly appears at the highest point ever reached in the art" (Hind, p. 165). "The plan of this publication took shape after Van Dyck returned from Italy (1626) and before he went to England (1632). He made careful preparatory drawings in chalk and brush for the publication. He directed and revised the work of the engravers, the best of the Rubens circle; he collaborated with his etching needle in some of the plates and himself etched the most beautiful set, mainly portraits of artists. One of the most brilliant in human characterization is the portrait of Peter Brueghel the Younger, son of the great Peasant Brueghel. It is remarkable that the etching appeared in this sketchy form in the book, proving that the master regarded it as finished. All interest is focussed on the wonderful had. The first edition was published in Antwerp in 1635-1636. Yet it was not complete, and the title-page did not appear before the Gillis Hendricx edition of 1645, engraved by Jacob Neels" (Benesch, Artistic and Intellectual Trends, p. 32.) Hofer, Baroque Book Illustrations 132.