Johann Theodor de Bry

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Johann Theodor de Bry (1528 – 1598) was a Flemish-born engraver, draftsman and book editor and publisher who became famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas. His name has also been written as Dietrich de Bry, Theodoor de Bry and Dirk de Bry. De Bry was born 1528 in Liege, in modern-day Belgium, to a wealthy protestant family. As a man he trained as a goldsmith and engraver, engraving into copper plates.

Around 1570, when the Catholic Spanish begun to persecute Flemish Protestants, de Bry fled to Strasbourg. In 1578 he moved to Frankfurt am Main and founded an engraving and publishing workshop. Around 1586-1588 he moved to London for a time, met geographer Richard Hakluyt and began to collect stories and illustrations of various European explorations. At the same time his family moved permanently to Frankfurt am Main and when he returned there in 1589, he begun plan new publications with his sons Johannes Theodorus de Bry and Johannes Israel de Bry.

In 1590 De Bry published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Hariot's Briefe and True Report of the new found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in modern-day North Carolina). Its illustrations were based on the watercolor paintings of colonist John White. The book sold well and the next year De Bry published a new one about the first French attempts to colonize Florida. It had accounts of Jean Ribault and René de Laudonnière about the attempt to found the French colony of Fort Caroline and 43 illustrations based of paintings of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, one of the few survivors of Fort Caroline. Jacques de Moyne had planned to publish his account of his expeditions but died 1587. According to De Bry's account, De Bry had bought de Moyne's paintings from his widow in London and used them as a basis for the engravings.

De Bry created large amount engraved illustrations for these books. Most of them were based on first hand observations even if de Bry himself never visited the Americas. To modern eyes, many of the illustrations seem formal but detailed.

De Bry probably made adjustments to the illustrations to please potential buyers, including adding backgrounds from his own imagination. He also emphasized Spanish atrocities towards the American natives. Amerindians look like Mediterranean Europeans and illustrations mix different tribal customs and artefacts. De Bry also included depictions of cannibalism. These illustrations influenced the European view of the New World.

Later commentators have begun to question the veracity of many illustrations. Modern archaeologists and historians have noticed number of mistakes. Florida archaeologist Jerald T. Milanich has expressed doubts that de Bry had really used le Moyne's original paintings, because most of le Moyne's surviving illustrations are botanical.

De Bry continued to publish various volumes until his death in Frankfurt am Main in March 27, 1598. His family continued the series until 1634 and expanded to European voyages to Asia. All the books total to 30 volumes. Among other works he engraved a set of twelve plates illustrating the Procession of the Knights of the Garter in 1576, and a set of thirty-four plates illustrating the Procession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney; plates for Thomas Harriot's Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (Frankfurt, 1595); the plates for the first four volumes of J. J. Boissard's Romanae Urbis Topogrephia et Antiquitates (1597-1598), and a series of portraits entitled Icones Virorum Illustrium (1597-1599). De Bry died at Frankfurt on the 27th of March 1598. He had been assisted by his eldest son Johannes Theodorus de Bry (1561-1623), who after his father's death carried on the Collectiones and the illustration of Boissard's work, and also added to the Icones. His brother Johannes Israel de Bry (d. 1611) collaborated with him.