Simon de Vries or Simon Frisius (1570–75 in Harlingen – 1628–29 in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

),Simon Frisius
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

was a Dutch engraver.

Life

He started his career in Paris, and worked in Rouen and Amsterdam before moving to the Hague in 1611 where he became a member of the

Confrerie Pictura The Confrerie Pictura was a more or less academic club of artists founded in 1656 in The Hague (the Netherlands) by local art painters, who were unsatisfied by the Guild of Saint Luke there. History The guild of St. Luke in the Hague existed a ...

. He travelled in France, Spain, Germany, Bohemia, and Russia.

Work

Frisius is regarded as one of the first to bring etching to perfection.

Abraham Bosse Abraham Bosse ( – 14 February 1676) was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour.point Point or points may refer to: Places * Point, Lewis, a peninsula in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland * Point, Texas, a city in Rains County, Texas, United States * Point, the NE tip and a ferry terminal of Lismore, Inner Hebrides, Scotland * Point ...

with freedom and facility. His etchings are bold and masterly; and in his

hatching Hatching (french: hachure) is an artistic technique used to create tonal or shading effects by drawing (or painting or scribing) closely spaced parallel lines. (It is also used in monochromatic representations of heraldry to indicate what the ...

s he approaches the neatness and strength of the graver. The prints of De Vries are scarce, and are much esteemed. The small figures which he occasionally introduced into his landscapes are correctly drawn. He frequently marked his plates ''S. F. fecit'', but sometimes with the word ''fecit'' only.

Principal works

The following are his principal works: Simon Frisius 004

*''A set of twelve small heads of female Saints and Sibyls''; after his own designs. *''A set of Portraits''; after

Hendrik Hondius Hendrik Hondius I (born Hendrik de Hondt; 9 June 1573 – ) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish-born and trained engraver, cartographer, and publisher who settled in the Dutch Republic in 1597. Life He was born as the son of Guillam (Will ...

. *''A set of twelve plates of Birds and Butterflies''; after Marcus Geerarts. *''Twenty-five Views and Landscapes''; entitled, ''Typographia variarum Regionum''; after paintings of

Matthijs Bril Matthijs Bril or Matthijs Bril the Younger (1550 – 8 June 1583) was a Flemish painter and draughtsman of landscapes A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made feat ...

. 1611 and 1613–14.Nicola Courtright. "Matthijs Bril."
Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 Apr. 2014 *''A mountainous Landscape on the Sea-coast, with figures''; after

Hendrik Goltzius Hendrick Goltzius, or Hendrik, (; ; January or February 1558 – 1 January 1617) was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, lauded for his ...

. *''A Landscape, with a Tower''; after the same. 1608. *''A Landscape, with the story of Tobit and the Angel''; after P. Lastman. *''A Landscape, with the Flight into Egypt''; after H. Hondius. *''A Landscape, with two pastoral figures''; highly finished, and very scarce.

References

Attribution: * 1570s births 1620s deaths Dutch engravers People from Harlingen, Netherlands Calligraphers from the Northern Netherlands {{Netherlands-artist-stub