Spaightwood Galleries

Lucas van Leyden is perhaps the first great Renaissance master printmaker produced by the Netherlands. Something of a child prodigy, he was first influenced by Albrecht Durer's works toward the end of the first decade of the sixteenth century. In 1521, Lucas and Durer met during Durer's trip to the Netherlands to try to win the support of the new Regent of the Netherlands for the renewal of the pension granted him by the Emperor Maximilian I. We know from Durer's diary of the trip that they met and enjoyed each other's art and company. After Durer left, Lucas was again challenged by the quality of Durer's works to rethink his engraving. Lucas combined the native Netherlandish tradition with Durer's inspiration and the Italian style that Jan Gossaert had brought back with him when he returned from Italy after the death of Pope Adrian VI, and gave birth to a style that dominated Netherlandish printmaking for almost 100 years (thanks, in part to a Lucas van Leyden revival led by Hendrik Goltzius and his followers, Jan Saenredam and Jan Harmendsz Muller). One of the greatest printmakers of the Renaissance.

Select Bibliography: Suzanne Boorsch & Nadine M. Orenstein, The Print in the North: The Age of Albrecht Durer and Lucas Van Leyden (NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997); P. van der Coelen,   Patriarchs, angels & prophets. The old testament in Netherlandish printmaking from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt (Amsterdam: Museum het Rembrandthuis, 1996); F.W.H. Hollstein, The graphic art of Lucas van Leyden 1494-1533 (Amsterdam: Menno Hertzberger, n.d.); F.W.H. Hollstein, The new Hollstein Dutch & Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, 1450-1700: Lucas van Leyden (Rotterdam: Sound & Vision Publishers, 1996); Ellen S. Jacobowitz, and Stephanie Loeb Stepanek, The Prints of Lucas Van Leyden and His Contemporaries (Washington D.C.: National Gallery of Art / Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983); J.P. Filedt Kok, Lucas van Leyden - Grafiek (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, 1978); Jacques Lavalleye., Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Lucas van Leyden: The Complete Engravings, Etchings and Woodcuts (NY: Abrams, 1967); Elise Lawton Smith, The Paintings of Lucas van Leyden. A new appraisal, with catalogue raisonne (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992); Maria Fossi Todorow, ed. Mostra delle incisioni di Luca di Leida (Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, Uffizi: Cataloghi. 16; Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 1963).