131. Gerrit Pietersz - Picturing the Netherlandish Canon

Etching
Signed ‘Hh.’ by Hendrick Hondius, attributed to Simon Frisius
20.1 x 12 cm

Transcription of Inscription:

GERARDUS PETRI, AMSTELRED. PICTOR.
Pictorum nulli Picturae cessit amore :
Tractavit tanto peniculum Studio.
Dicere qui solitus, Non tanti ducere Sceptrum
Se Hesperium, quanti Peniculum faceret.

Translation of Inscription:

Gerard Pietersz. of Amsterdam, painter 131
He yielded to no painter in his love of painting, with such great zeal did he use the paintbrush, he who was accustomed to say that he did not value the Hesperian sceptre¹ as much as the paintbrush.

Orenstein 1996, Frisius no. 153; Hollstein 2008 no.173

mentioned in Karel Van Mander’s life of Cornelis Cornelisz. Van Haarlem
Grove Art Online biography

Footnotes:

i.e. rule over the Western world.

Artist Tags: 1610 Hondius Pictorum, Artists with tools of their trade (not including sheet or rolls of paper), Explicitly described as painters in the verse, Only in the Hondius Pictorum, Pictor, Prints in Part Three and Third person.