The paintings of Hendrick Goltzius

About this book

This long-awaited volume is a comprehensive study of the paintings of Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), the most important artist in the Netherlands at the turn of the seventeenth century. A poem published in Haarlem in 1617 lamented the death that year of the most artful master Hendrick Goltzius, in his life [a] skillful painter, draftsman, and artful engraver. The fact that "painter" heads the list of his accomplishments is significant, for although Goltzius enjoyed international fame as a draughtsman and engraver, to his contemporaries he was equally renowned for his skill in the art of painting, which was considered the highest artistic calling. This volume on his paintings, the first since Hirschmann's short study of 1916, finally completes a full assessment of this artist of Haarlem, whose drawings were the subject of Reznicek's publication of 1961 and whose prints were catalogued by Leesberg in the New Hollstein series that appeared in 2012.