Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (c.1516–bf. 1604) was a Flemish/British engraver, illustrator, and painter most often associated with the English Royal Court of the mid-16th Century, and is more commonly remembered as the illustrator of the 1567 edition of Aesop's Fables.

Born in Brugges, Flanders, Gheeraerts fled to England in 1568 with his son Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (1562–1635) due to the Alvan religious persecutions. There he married his second wife: Sussanah de Critz, a close relative of Queen Elizabeth I's sergeant-painter, John de Critz (AKA: "Master John" best known for his 1544 portrait of Bloody Mary); and apparently stayed in London just long enough to have his eldest son enrolled in the Guild there, since he returned to Flanders in about 1577 to continue on with his career. One of his daughters, Sarah, married the famous limner Isaac Oliver.

There are no identifiable color portraits or paintings done by Gheeraerts as he did never sign them, and the ones that do exist are completely identifiable upon stylistic considerations – a certain "fuzziness" with an aire to imitate former Flemish artists such as Jan Van Eyck.

He is most noteworthy as an illustrator and engraver, and for his innovations of new media. He also worked well with those who would subsequently use his sketches and drawings for engravings, as his preliminary and final sketches were and are commonly copied or used as rough drafts by these groups of artisans.

His subject matter varied from assignment to assignment, but he is well noted for his illustrations of animals and his birdseye view of the town of Brugges, which still preserves the original copper plate that the illustration was done on to this day.