Jacobus Houbraken
Encyclopedia
Jacobus Houbraken was a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 engraver, who was born in Dordrecht
Dordrecht
Dordrecht , colloquially Dordt, historically in English named Dort, is a city and municipality in the western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the fourth largest city of the province, having a population of 118,601 in 2009...

.

Biography

Jacobus learned the art of engraving from his father, Arnold Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken
Arnold Houbraken was a Dutch painter and writer from Dordrecht, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age. He had ten children. His son Jacobus Houbraken was an engraver of portraits and book illustrations, including books by his father...

 (1660-1719). In 1707 he moved to Amsterdam, where for years he helped his father with his magnum opus, his art historical
Art history
Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...

 work De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718-1721). When his father died he assisted his mother with the last proofs of the manuscript before publishing. With this project he started his portraits of Netherlandish celebrities, that are today in many cases the only likenesses left of these people. He was influenced by studying the works of Cornelis Cort
Cornelis Cort
Cornelis Cort was a Dutch engraver and draughtsman. He spent the last 12 years of his life in Italy, where he was known as Cornelio Fiammingo.-Biography:...

, Jonas Suyderhoef, Gerard Edelinck
Gerard Edelinck
Gerard Edelinck , was a Flemish copper-plate engraver.Edelinck was born in Antwerp, where he received his early training from the engraver Cornelis Galle. He then went to Paris to improve himself under the teaching of De Poilly...

 and the Visschers.

Works

He devoted himself almost entirely to portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

ure. His work became famous through his collaboration with the historian Thomas Birch
Thomas Birch
Thomas Birch was an English historian.-Life:He was the son of Joseph Birch, a coffee-mill maker, and was born at Clerkenwell....

 and artist George Vertue
George Vertue
George Vertue was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period.-Life:...

, on the project entitled, Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, published in parts in London from 1743 to 1752. After that, during the years 1752-59 he worked with the historian Jan Wagenaar (1709-1773) on his 21 part Vaderlandsche historie, working for the publisher Isaac Tirion in Amsterdam. With this project of biographies of celebrated figures, he annotated his work with notes about the original paintings.

Among his best works are scenes from the comedy of "De Ontdekte Schijndeugd", executed in his eightieth year, after Cornelis Troost
Cornelis Troost
Cornelis Troost was a Dutch painter from Amsterdam, "by far the most original and versatile artist of his age", which was however the period following the Dutch Golden Age painting of the previous century...

, who was called by his countrymen the Dutch Hogarth
Hogarth
-People:* Burne Hogarth, American cartoonist, illustrator, educator and author* David George Hogarth, English archaeologist* Donald Hogarth, Canadian politician and mining financier* Paul Hogarth, English painter and illustrator...

. Houbraken also engraved the portraits for Jan van Gool
Jan van Gool
Johan, or Jan van Gool was a Dutch painter and writer from The Hague, now remembered mainly as a biographer of artists from the Dutch Golden Age.- Life :...

's Nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders (Den Haag 1750–51).

Legacy

His oeuvre of more than 400 portrait engravings form an important record for art provenance. His portraits were often set in an oval frame, with a subtitle with the subject's claim to fame. Under that in small letters, he placed his notes about the original oil portrait. Some examples:

External links

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