Anna Roemers Visscher was a Dutch

Dutch people

The Dutch people are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a common culture and speak the Dutch language. Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Suriname, Chile, Brazil, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and the United...

 artist

Artist

An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, and translator

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

.
Anna Roemers Visscher, well-known for her literary work, was the eldest daughter of Amsterdam merchant and poet Roemer Visscher

Roemer Visscher

Roemer Pieterszoon Visscher was a successful Dutch merchant and writer in the period often called the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...

 and the sister of Maria Tesselschade Visscher

Maria Tesselschade Visscher

Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, also called Maria Tesselschade Roemersdochter Visscher or Tesselschade was a Dutch poet and engraver.-Life:...

. Her family's economic and social status in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 enabled Visscher to be schooled in languages, calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, embroidery

Embroidery

Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....

, drawing

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

, painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 glass engraving and other arts. Visscher married Dominicus Booth van Wesel in 1624. In 1646, They moved with their two sons Roemer and Johan to Leiden.

Visscher lived during the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 where women poets were often praised for who they were more than for their literary work. She was amongst the group of artists, writers and musicians who formed the Muiderkring

Muiderkring

In the Golden Age of the Dutch Republic, roughly equivalent to the later half of the 17th century, the Muiderkring was the name given to a group of figures in the arts and sciences who regularly met at the castle of Muiden near Amsterdam...

 or Muiden Circle. She was highly admired by the artistic elite such as P. C. Hooft

Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft

Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft - Knight in the Order of Saint Michael - was a Dutch historian, poet and playwright from the period known as the Dutch Golden Age.-Life:...

, Jacob Cats

Jacob Cats

Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...

, Joost van den Vondel

Joost van den Vondel

Joost van den Vondel was a Dutch writer and playwright. He is considered the most prominent Dutch poet and playwright of the 17th century. His plays are the ones from that period that are still most frequently performed, and his epic Joannes de Boetgezant , on the life of John the Baptist, has...

, Constantijn Huygens

Constantijn Huygens

Constantijn Huygens , was a Dutch Golden Age poet and composer. He was secretary to two Princes of Orange: Frederick Henry and William II, and the father of the scientist Christiaan Huygens.-Biography:...

 and others. They called her a muse, the second Sappho

Sappho

Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...

, a fourth grace and more and often dedicated works to her. She is particularly regarded for her diamond-point glass engraving

Glass engraving

Glass engraving is a form of decorative glasswork that involves engraving a glass surface or object. It is distinct from glass art in the narrow sense, which refers to moulding and blowing glass....

. Additionally, she had an apparent interest in emblem book

Emblem book

Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

s, as she translated into Dutch thirteen epigrams from Georgette de Montenay's

Georgette de Montenay

Georgette de Montenay was the French author of , published in Lyons between 1567-71. Montenay has always been regarded as a lady-in-waiting to Jeanne d'Albret, the Protestant Queen of Navarre, partly because she dedicated her work to the Queen...

 Emblèmes, ou devises chrestiennes of 1584 http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/manuscripts/search/resultsn.cfm?NID=15755&RID=. She also contributed poetry to the 1618 emblem book, Silenus Alcibiadis, Sive Proteus http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/laan005lett01/laan005lett01_2056.htm by Jacob Cats

Jacob Cats

Jacob Cats was a Dutch poet, humorist, jurist and politician. He is most famous for his emblem books.-Early years:...

. She was a contemporary and friend of Anna Maria van Schurman

Anna Maria van Schurman

Anna Maria van Schurman was a German-Dutch painter, engraver, poet and scholar. She was a highly educated woman by seventeenth century standards...

.

Anna Visscher died in Alkmaar

Alkmaar

Alkmaar is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands, in the province of Noord Holland. Alkmaar is well known for its traditional cheese market. For tourists, it is a popular cultural destination.-History:...

, at the home of her sister Maria.

External links

• Rijksmuseum - examples of Anna Roemers Visscher's glass engraving.