11. Jan Harmensz. Muller (1571-1628)
after Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

Albert, Archduke of Austria and Sovereign of the Netherlands

(click on image to print)
Muller, Albert, Archduke of Austria

Albert, Archduke of Austria and Sovereign of the Netherlands

Engraving, 1615, 421 x 297 mm., Bartsch 62, Hollstein 77 iv/iv. Very fine and rich impression on laid paper trimmed on or just inside the plate mark but with a white area outside the borderline all around and the full text, with the privilege. A few edge losses filled, not affecting the image or text. Though born in Amsterdam, Muller was actually a Flemish painter and draughtsman and one of the most brilliant of the Northern Mannerist engravers, working after his own designs as well as those of Goltzius, Cornelisz, Spranger and de Vries. Among his works are a number of superb portraits and the Rubens painting upon which this one is based is apparently now in the São Paulo Museum of Art. Albert, together with his wife, Isabella, the Infanta of Spain, was Sovereign of the Hapsburg Netherlands from 1598 to 1621, years of war with burgeoning Dutch Republic and later of the consolidation of the Southern Netherlands (Belgium). The engraving would have been widely admired there, while anathema in the Northern Provinces, but is certainly one of the great engraved portraits of the time.