111. Cornelius Ketel

Cornelius Ketel engraving

Engraved by Hendrick Hondius (Orenstein 1996)
Signed ‘Hh. Esc. Cum privil.’ by Hendrick Hondius
20.9 x 11.8 cm

Transcription of Inscription:

CORNELIUS KETEL, GOUDANUS.
Primus hic á Luca Leidano pictor habetur
     Goudanus, Batavi gloria uterque soli.
Quam bene conveniant, docuit, Pictura, Poesis :
    Quae pinxit, prius hic finxerat ingenio.

Translation of Inscription:

Cornelius Ketel of Gouda. 
This man of Gouda is held to be the greatest painter after Lucas van Leyden – both [are] glories of the Dutch land.  He taught how well painting and poetry1 go together.  What he painted, the other2 had first imagined3 with his genius.

 

 Hollstein 1994 no.111
 Karel Van Mander’s biography of Cornelius Ketel 
 Grove Art Online biography

Footnotes:

  1. See note on “illustrated poems” in 7. ‘To the Lover and Hater of Things Written and Drawn’.
  2.  I gather this is more likely to be Ketel, but the Latin is not clear
  3. “finxerat”, literally “formed”, may refer to an act of the imagination, or to creative writing.