Jan Wierix

Johannes Wierix or Jan Wierix (1549 – ca. 1620), was a Flemish engraver, draughtsman and publisher. He was a very accomplished engraver who made prints after his own designs as well as designs by local and foreign artists.

Together with other members of the Wierix family of engravers he played an important role in spreading appreciation for Netherlandish art abroad as well as in creating art that supported the Catholic cause in the Southern Netherlands. Johannes Wierix is also known for his miniature pen drawings.

He was born in Antwerp as the son of Anton Wierix I (c. 1520/25–c. 1572). His father Anton was registered as a painter in 1545–6 but is occasionally also referred to as a cabinet maker. It is not believed that Anton I taught Johannes or his other two sons Hieronymous and Anton II. Johannes and Hieronymus are believed to have trained with a goldsmith while Anton II likely trained with an older brother, probably Johannes. Listed as Lutherans at the time of the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, the family members seem to have reconverted to Catholicism soon thereafter.

In his early career Johannes was active in Antwerp as an engraver, initially working as a reproductive artist after works by Dürer and other artists. He became employed by the prominent publisher Christophe Plantin in 1569. The three Wierix brothers gained a reputation for their disorderly conduct as evidenced by a 1587 letter by Plantin to the Jesuit priest Ferdinand Ximenes in which he complained that whoever wanted to employ the Wierix brothers had to look for them in the taverns, pay their debts and fines and recover their tools, since they would have pawned them. Plantin also wrote that after having worked for a few days the brothers would return to the tavern. Plantin regularly had to repay Johannes' debts. Johannes became a master engraver registered in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1572-1573.

After marrying Elisabeth Bloemsteen in 1576 he soon left her and was recorded in Delft from 1577 to 1579. His famous engraving of beached whales on the beach of Ter Heyde was made by him in 1577. He also received commissions to produce small oval portraits of prominent citizens of Delft. Upon returning to Antwerp in 1579, Johannes Wierix worked not only for Plantin, but also for other publishers such as Hans Liefrinck, Jan-Baptist Vrients, Phillip Galle, Gerard de Jode, Willem and Godevaard van Haecht and Hieronymous Cock's widow Volcxken Dierix who continued the publishing business after her husband's death. In addition, he occasionally published his own engravings himself. Johannes Wierix was so much in demand that he could exact such a high price for his work that Plantin was not always able or willing to engage him for a publication project.

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