15. after Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569), etched and engraved possibly by
Hieronymus Cock (1510-1570)
Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

(click on image to print)
after Brueghel, Saint Jerome

Saint Jerome in the Wilderness

Etching and engraving from The Set of Large Landscapes, 307 x 423 mm., Bastelaer 7 only state, Hollstein 7only state. A good impression on laid paper with the watermark of a double-headed eagle (this version not in Briquet or Heawood) trimmed on the borderline or barely inside on three sides, below the text at the base; spots of foxing verso only, pale stains in the sky and traces of old creases, noticeable mainly at the upper left, the central fold partially reinforced. Pieter Brueghel etched precisely one plate himself; all the other “Brueghel prints” are by others, sometimes anonymous, after his designs. He was considered, by print publishers, too valuable as an inventor of images to spend long hours at the craft of engraving them on copper. But we can be reasonably sure that the final prints accurately reflected his intentions. The large landscapes (St. Jerome is little more than an excuse here) were largely inspired by Brueghel’s travels through the Alps and into Italy, but his pictorial imagination modified and expanded even the immensities he actually saw.