Schelte à Bolswert

Schelte a Bolswert (1586–1659) was a leading Dutch engraver, noted for his works after Rubens and Van Dyck

He was born in the town of Bolswert, in Friesland, in 1586. Both he and his older brother, Boetius à Bolswert, worked in Amsterdam and Haarlem before settling in Antwerp. For the last five years of his life Boetius worked exclusively on engravings after Rubens. Following his death in 1633, Schelte was employed by Rubens in his place, working closely with the painter, who sometimes retouched his proofs. He continued to engrave his works after Rubens' death in 1640.

Bolswert's plates were worked entirely with the graver, and he does not seem to have made any use of the drypoint.Basan said of his work:

The freedom which this excellent artist handled the graver, the picturesque roughness of etching, which he could imitate without any other assisting instrument, and the ability he possessed of distinguishing the different masses of colours, have always been admired by the conoisseurs".

Joseph Strutt, after quoting this passage, adds that Bolswert "drew excellently, and without any manner of his own; for his prints are the exact transcripts of the pictures he engraved from". His plates are generally signed with his name.

He died at Antwerp in 1659.

This article incorporates text from the article "BOLSWERT, Scheltius à" in Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers by Michael Bryan, edited by Robert Edmund Graves and Sir Walter Armstrong, an 1886–1889 publication now in the public domain.

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