25. Cornelius Engebrechtsz

Cornelius Engebrechtsz engraving

Engraving
Signed ‘Hh exc.’ by Hendrick Hondius
20.5 x 12.4 cm

Transcription of Inscription [Lampsonius]:

CORNELIUS ENGELBERT. LEIDAN. PICTOR.
Hic inter primos oleo de semine lini 
     Expresso in Batavis pingere qui didicit.
Miramur Vultus quos pinxit, Chromata laeta.
     Pictorum hunc Lucas flos colit artificem.

Translation of Inscription [Lampsonius]:

Cornelis Engelbrechtsz. Painter of Leyden.
This man was among the first of the Dutch who learnt to paint with pressed oily seed of flax.1  We wonder at the faces [and] joyful colours which he painted.  Lucas, the flower of painters, frequented this artist.

Hollstein 1994 no.90

Karel Van Mander’s biography of Cornelius Engebrechtsz
Grove Art Online biography

Footnotes:

  1. “oleo de semine lini”: the same expression in the poem for Jan van Eyck