Portrait of Bartolomaeus Spranger with an Allegory of the Death of His Wife, Christina Müller
Medium
Engraving with etching in black on ivory laid paper
Dimensions
Image/sheet, trimmed within platemark: 29.3 × 41.6 cm (11 9/16 × 16 7/16 in.)
Classification
engraving
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
22118
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Aegidius Sadeler belonged to one of the great Netherlandish dynasties of reproductive printmakers. Sadeler went to Prague in about 1597 and worked at the court of Emperor Rudolph II. He was so admired for his portrait engraving that he was called the "Phoenix of Engraving." In this complex combination of portraiture and allegory, he paid homage to a contemporary Mannerist artist, Bartholomaeus Spranger. In deference to his fellow artist, Sadeler included a portrait of Spranger's recently decease...
About the Artist
Aegidius Sadeler, II · 1570–1629
Aegidius Sadeler II was born in Antwerp around 1570 into the most distinguished printmaking dynasty of the sixteenth century. The Sadeler family — spanning Jan I, Raphael, and Aegidius I — dominated the European print trade from their Flemish base, and Aegidius II was trained by his uncle Jan Sadeler I, under whom he was listed as a pupil in the records of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1585. He...