Goltzius, Hendrick

Goltzius, Hendrick

(born 1558, Mulebrecht, Neth.—died Jan. 1, 1617, Haarlem) Dutch printmaker and painter. He set up his own copperplate-engraving business in Haarlem and became the leading master of Dutch Mannerist engraving. His early works included reproductions of prints by Albrecht Dürer and Lucas van Leyden. Among his best-known original prints are an engraving of the Farnese Hercules (c. 1592), the chiaroscuro woodcut Hercules Killing Cacus (1588), and the series Roman Heroes (1586). His miniature portrait drawings are outstanding, and his landscape drawings anticipate the great 17th-century landscapes. His paintings, done late in his career, are less impressive, but his technique as an engraver was unsurpassed.