Pieter Bruegel the Elder is known to us all for his famous paintings. These days not so many people know that in his day Bruegel made his name among the general public as a designer of prints. Commissioned by the Antwerp publisher Hieronymus Cock (1517/8-1570), Bruegel produced more than sixty drawings which were cut in copper by the best engravers of his time.
Unknown engraver, after Maarten van Heemskerck, The Statue Court of the Palazzo della Valle in Rome, 1553, engraving (c) Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Rijksprentenkabinet
Cock set about making Bruegel a star artist by diffusing his prints throughout Europe. The Royal Library of Belgium houses a wealth of documents by Cock and his print publishing house, ‘Aux Quatre Vents’ (‘At the Sign of the Four Winds’).
As well as Bruegel, Cock also published innovative prints by great renaissance masters like Raphael, Bronzino, Floris, Lombard and Heemskerck. M Leuven is providing the public with a one-off opportunity to view a wide selection of these works on paper from the Royal Library of Belgium’s Print Room plus loans from collections at home and abroad.
The exhibition is a collaboration between the Royal Library of Belgium, M Leuven and the University of Leuven.
Curators: Jan Van der Stock (Illuminare, Study Center for Medieval Art at KU Leuven), Joris van Grieken (Royal Library of Belgium) and Ger Luijten (Fondation Custodia in Paris).
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