Cornelis Bos or Bossche (c. 1506/10 – before 7 May 1555) was a Flemish engraver, printseller and book publisher, known for his accurate engravings of Italian works. His work is often signed with the

monogram A monogram is a motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbols or logos. A series o ...

C-B.

Biography

He was born at 's Hertogenbosch, whence his surname ''Bos'' is derived, and is registered there until 1637, but he was in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

by 1 April 1541 when he was granted citizenship of that city and membership in the

Guild of St. Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Four Evangelists, Evangelist Saint Luke, Luke, the patron sa ...

. There has been some speculation that he took a trip to Italy in the intervening years, but this is not certain. His earliest identified engravings reproduce

Maarten van Heemskerck Maarten van Heemskerck or ''Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk van Veen'' (1 June 1498 - 1 October 1574) was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem. He was a pupil of Jan van Scorel, and adopted his teacher's Itali ...

's ''Prudence and Justice'' (1537), and a work by

Agostino Veneziano Agostino Veneziano ("Venetian Agostino"), whose real name was Agostino de' Musi (c. 1490 – c. 1540), was an important and prolific Italian engraver of the Renaissance. Life Veneziano was born in Venice, where he trained as an artist, though ...

. His re-engraving of work by

Marcantonio Raimondi Marcantonio Raimondi, often called simply Marcantonio (c. 1470/82 – c. 1534), was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists largely of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figu ...

does not necessarily indicate that he ever made a trip to Rome. Until 1544 Bos worked in Antwerp as an engraver, commissioned by publishers in the city's extensive book trade for illustrations in books. His engravings, copied from the published engravings in Italian editions, served as illustrations for a brief summary in Dutch of the treaty on architecture by

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled ''De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribute ...

and for a Dutch translation of Book IV of

Sebastiano Serlio Sebastiano Serlio (6 September 1475 – c. 1554) was an Italian Mannerist architect, who was part of the Italian team building the Palace of Fontainebleau. Serlio helped canonize the classical orders of architecture in his influential treat ...

's architectural treatise, both published by

Pieter Coecke van Aelst Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst the Elder ( Aalst, 14 August 1502 – Brussels, 6 December 1550) was a Flemish painter, sculptor, architect, author and designer of woodcuts, goldsmith's work, stained glass and tapestries.

. Bos' engravings illustrate a text on anatomy that he produced in 1542 by the printer and publisher Antoine de Goys. In the summer of 1544 Bos was forced to flee Antwerp for his participation in an antisacerdotalist free-thinking spiritualist sect and was declared exiled by the Council of Brabant in his absence. It appears that he went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where an anatomical work published by Jérôme de Gourmont in 1545 repeats text used by Cornelis Bos and even makes use of the woodblocks formerly in his possession. Between 1546 and 1548, from his secure refuge in

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

, Cornelis Bos would publish more than a hundred engraved designs of

strapwork In the history of art and design, strapwork is the use of stylised representations in ornament of ribbon-like forms. These may loosely imitate leather straps, parchment or metal cut into elaborate shapes, with piercings, and often interwoven in ...

and

grotesque Since at least the 18th century (in French and German as well as English), grotesque has come to be used as a general adjective for the strange, mysterious, magnificent, fantastic, hideous, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting, and thus ...

s. Bos also produced popular engravings of religious and allegorical subjects, often dependent for their composition upon the '' Kleinmeisters'' of Nuremberg, with many parallels in the output of

Virgil Solis Virgil Solis or Virgilius Solis (1514 – 1 August 1562), a member of a prolific family of artists, was a German draughtsman and printmaker in engraving, etching and woodcut who worked in his native city of Nuremberg. Biography His prints ...

. Bos moved to

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

, where he is registered as having sold paper to the city magistrate 2 December 1548. He was granted citizenship there in 1550. His first wife Lijnken van Dort or van den Bos, with whom he had five children, was deceased by then and he remarried Alijdt, who came from a local family. The couple had two children. A document of 7 Mai 1555 refers to him as deceased. An inventory of his workshop and other possessions, taken 3 August 1544, which included two printing presses, and the auction of his property 3 January 1545, have been mined by historians of

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

Works

Laocoön and His Sons The statue of ''Laocoön and His Sons'', also called the Laocoön Group ( it, Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican Museums ...

,Cornelis Bos' drawing for the engraving of one of Laocoön's sons at

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

, was described by Paul Buschmann, "Drawings by Cornelis Bos and Cornelis Floris", ''The Burlington Magazine'' 29 (November 1916) 324-327 * A decorative patternbook published by Jérôme de Gourmont, ''Livre de moresques'' (1546) was a pirated edition of a work published in Antwerp by Bos in 1530; it served designers of mannerist scrollwork (''bandelwerk'') in the Low Countries. File:Louvre-Lens - L'Europe de Rubens - 125 - Léda et le cygne.JPG, Engraving after a lost work by Michelangelo of

Leda and the Swan Leda and the Swan is a story and subject in art from Greek mythology in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces or rapes Leda. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the sa ...

File:The Holy Trinity LACMA M.88.91.92.jpg, The Holy Trinity

Notes

External links

Bos Cornelis
''All-art.org'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bos, Cornelis Year of birth uncertain 16th-century deaths 16th-century engravers Flemish engravers