Mola Aquaria, plate 10 from 'Nova Reperta', engraved by Philip Galle

"New discoveries; the sciences, inventions, and discoveries of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as represented in 24 engravings issued in the early 1580's by Stradanus."

Copper engraving (rézmetszet), 26.5x20.4 cm.

Jan or Johannes Stradanus (originally: Jan van der Straet or Straeten) (1523-1605) was a Flemish artist and after an apprenticeship at an Antwerp publishing house, he spent the majority of his productive life in Italy, particularly Florence. - With the patronage of Cosimo I de Medici, Stradanus painted frescoes and designed tapestries. He also combined his talents with the Galle family of engravers (Antwerp) to produce a series of successful prints including the examples above. Probably his most well known legacy is a series of engraved prints of hunting that developed from a tapestry commission he received. 24 engravings from drawings by Stradanus were included in the Nova Reperta - 'New Discoveries' - collection, which was a print series celebrating renaissance progress in art, science and technology from ~1580. There's an obvious advocacy for viewing these discoveries and technologies as wholly belonging to the age in which the prints were issued.

The Galles were a Flemish family of artists and publishers of Dutch origin. The print workshop and publishing house founded by PhilipGalle was one of the most important centres for engraving in Antwerp from the late 16th century to the early 17th. The business was continued by his sons Theodor Galle and Cornelis Galle I, who are chiefly known as reproductive engravers after compositions by Rubens and who, with their colleagues in the workshop, were among the first generation of engravers whose reputations were made by this work. Many of the title-pages and book illustrations produced in the Galleworkshop were reprinted by the Plantin and Moretus presses. Philip's grandsons Cornelis Galle II and Joannes Galle continued the family business. Philip Galle was a draughtsman, engraver, publisher, print dealer, writer and historian. It is possible that he was a pupil in Haarlem of Dirk Volkertsz. Coornhert, but more than likely he was trained in the Antwerp workshop of Hieronymous Cock, who published Galle's first prints in 1557 and for whom he worked for many years. Shortly after 1557 PhilipGalle started his own publishing and print business, for which he travelled extensively: in 1560-61 he visited the southern Netherlands, France, Germany and Italy. After 1564 he settled in Antwerp, where he acquired citizenship in 1571, the same year in which he became a master in the city's Guild of St Luke. He served as dean of the guild from 1585 to 1587. His documented pupils were H. van Doort in 1580, Karel van Mallery (1571-1635) in 1586, Jean-Baptiste Barbé (1578-1649) in 1594 and Peter Backereel (d 1637) in 1605. Others working at the workshop and publishing house included Philip's sons Theodor and Cornelis, his son-in-law Adriaen Collaert, pupils van Mallery and Barbé, the Wierix brothers, Hendrick Goltzius, Crispijn de Passe I and other members of the Collaert family.