Saenredam was born in Zaandam, c. 1565. Orphaned in childhood, he was raised by an uncle, Pieter de Jongh, a bailiff in Assendelft. Though brought up for a life of farm labour and handiwork, he turned to drawing and in time attained some success as a mapmaker. With the help of a local lawyer, he entered the circle of Hendrick Goltzius relatively late in life, in 1589, and worked for short periods with both Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn II. Saenredam was one of Goltzius' most important masters and worked closely with him, creating a major body of work. According to both de Bie and Schrevelius, there was some rivalry between each of these masters and Saenredam, who quickly absorbed what they had to offer him. About 1595 Saenredam returned to Assendelft, where he married and where his son Pieter, who later became famous for his paintings of the interiors of churches, was born. He died in Assendelft in 1607.

In Graven Images: The Rise of Professional Printmakers in Antwerp and Haarlem, 1540-1640, ed. Timothy Riggs and Larry Silver (Evanston: Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, 1993), Riggs describes Saenredam's "most characteristic engraving style" as "similar to Goltzius' but more delicate, with silver tones and silky textures," as exemplified in The Expulsion from Eden after Abraham Bloemaert and The Foolish Virgins (both of which are illustrated in Graven Images and both of which will be found in the pages devoted to Saenredam on our website). Silver, in a chapter on "Goltzius as Evolutionary Reproductive Engraver," suggests that "the most important engraver after Goltzius was Jan Saenredam. . . . Saenredam began as Goltzius' apprentice and produced his first engravings in 1589 but he soon left after Goltzius criticsm to work with his fellow apprentice de Gheyn in Amsterdam for a couple of years. he then set up his own production shop for prints after Goltzius and other, younger designers, especially Bloemaert. . . . Saenredam followed the Goltzius lead in mking prints after similar designers: Polidoro da Caravaggio, Corneis van Haarlem, and an elaborate varian of his own on Goltzius' beached whale. Saenredam, too, promoted the Lucas van Leyden revival in his prints. He made engravings in 1600 after two surviving Lucas drawings: Jael and Judith. . . . " Silver points out that Saenredam's work after Goltzius (B. 40-103) extended for almost a full decade, and frequently included images from the Old Testament (click Old Testament Subjects), the New Testament (click New Testament), allegorical or moral cycles, particularly allegories of the Four Seasons, Times of Day [see under History and Allegory], Five Senses, Seven Planets, and even Three Kinds of Marriage [see under History and Allegory]. In addition, Saenredam also frequently produced images of mythic deities after Goltzius (see under Mythological, sometimes with an emblematic or allegorical message.

Selected Bibliography: K. G. Boon, Hollstein's Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, vol. 23: Jan Saenredam to Roelandt Savery (Amsterdam: Van Gendt, 1980); Volume 4 of The Illustrated Bartsch gives the works of Goltzius' studio and followers, Matham, Saenredam, and Jan Muller, and illustrates all of Saenredam's works.