Portret van Johannes Schöner
1597 - 1599
Medium
engraving
Dimensions
138; 107
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
Mogelijk prent uit: Boissard, Jean-Jacques; Bry, Theodoor de; e.a. Bibliotheca sive thesaurus virtutis et gloriae in quo continentur illustrium eruditione et doctrina virorum effigies et vitae (...). Frankfurt: Guilielmi Fitzeri, 1628.
Art Historical Context
This engraving by Robert Boissard captures Johannes Schöner, the influential German astronomer, geographer, and instrument maker whose work helped shape 16th-century understandings of the cosmos. Created between 1597 and 1599, the portrait was likely intended for a later compilation of distinguished scholars, appearing in the 1628 Frankfurt publication *Bibliotheca sive thesaurus virtutis et gloriae*. Though Schöner had died decades earlier, such posthumous images kept his contributions visible to new generations of readers and collectors. Measuring just 138 by 107 millimeters, the small scale reflects engraving’s role as a portable, reproducible medium during the late Renaissance. Boissard’s precise line work allowed fine details of clothing, facial features, and scholarly attributes to be widely distributed across Europe, turning individual portraits into shared cultural references. These prints helped build a visual “hall of fame” for intellectuals at a time when books were becoming central to learning and reputation. Today the engraving offers a window into how knowledge and fame traveled through printed images. Its presence in a multi-volume thesaurus of illustrious lives underscores the era’s fascination with celebrating learned men, preserving their likenesses long after they were gone.
About the Artist
Robert Boissard · 1586–1691
Robert Boissard (c. 1570–after 1630) was a French engraver and draughtsman whose work exemplifies the transition from late Renaissance to early Baroque printmaking in France. Born around 1570 in Valence, Boissard belonged to an artistic family and was a relative of the distinguished scholar and artist Jean-Jacques Boissard (1528–1602), whose monumental biographical and archaeological publications ...