Pieter de Jode was born in Antwerp in 1573. His father Gerard was a cartographer, publisher and engraver. Presumably, Pieter was taught in his father’s workshop from early on, possibly by the Wierix brothers, as his early work is stylistically closely related to theirs. He started making prints at a young age; the first prints bearing his name as engraver were published by his father in the late 1580’s. Before long, Pieter moved to Haarlem to work as an apprentice in the workshop of Hendrick Goltzius, who his father was connected to through his dealings with his fellow engraver Philips Galle, who was originally from Haarlem. In Goltzius’ workshop, he was trained in the engraving technique of the master, which would have a lasting impact on his style. In fact, he assimilated Goltzius’ technique and style so well that his unsigned Holy Family after Bartholomeus Spranger has been attributed to Goltzius  himself in the past.         

 

Following the death of his father in early 1591, de Jode returned to Antwerp to work in the family publishing firm, which was now run by his older brother Cornelis and his mother Passchijnke van Gelre. During this period he engraved designs by other artists, such as Maarten de Vos and Adam van Noort, but he also produced (and engraved) his own designs for his mother’s business - such as a series of the Five Senses. He also occasionally supplied other publishers, such as Jacob Goltzius, with designs. In 1595 de Jode left for Italy, first going to Venice and then moving on to Siena and Rome. During his five-year stay in Italy, he worked for various Italian publishers while also sending a few occasional plates home to be published in Antwerp. 

 

De Jode had returned to Antwerp by early 1601, presumably after having heard about the death of his brother Cornelis, who died in October 1600. His mother died only a few months later, after which the de Jode publishing firm was wound up. Pieter, who was registered in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1601 (he became first dean of the guild in 1608), started a new publishing firm with a small stock of plates he had salvaged from his parents’ business, in addition to a few plates he had brought with him from Italy. In 1602 he married Susanna Verhulst. Their son, Pieter (II) also became an engraver after being taught by his father. De Jode could not be considered a ‘peintre-graveur’; his own part as an engraver and designer in the prints he published was rather limited. Of all ca. 460 prints that carry Pieter de Jode's address as their publisher, only fifteen can be considered to have been both engraved and designed by Pieter de Jode himself, as they are signed with fecit et excud[it] [made and published]. He mostly engraved works by Italian - notably a large group designed by Antonio Tempesta - and Flemish artists, the latter group including designs by Peter Paul Rubens, Sebastiaen Vrancx and Anthony van Dyck, to name but a few. Incidentally, Van Dyck included de Jode's portrait in his Iconographia.

 

Besides his work as a publisher, de Jode was active as a draughtsman, who designed many more prints for other publishers than for his own firm. His drawings are all executed in pen and brown wash over traces of black chalk. (In his later drawings he sometimes also used white highlights.) As a designer, de Jode mainly worked for the publisher Theodoor Galle; he also designed prints for book publishers, mostly for the Plantin-Moretus firm, whose account books mention several payments to de Jode for drawings. De Jode is known to have engraved plates for other publishers, although after setting up his own firm he did this only rarely. In addition to all this, he was also active as an art dealer, dealing in books, prints and paintings.

 

The present, superbly executed washed pen drawing was done by De Jode in preparation for a sumptuous picture bible with large numbers of engravings by and after many famous artists of the past and present – e.g. Maerten van Heemskerck (1498-1574), Maerten de Vos (1532-1603), Hans Sadeler (1550-1600), Michiel Coxcie (1499-1592), Karel van Mander (1548-1606), Harmen Muller (1539-1617) and De Jode himself. The copperplates for this project were largely part of Pieter’s father Gerard’s seminal illustrated bible Thesaurus Sacrarum Historiarum, first published in Antwerp in 1579. Although it might at one point have been Pieter’s intention to publish an update of the Thesaurus, he at any rate never finished this project. Instead, it was decided to sell the copperplates and designs. In 1612 the plates were owned by the widow of the Antwerp print seller Jan-Baptist Vrients. Finally they ended up with the draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker, and publisher Claes Jansz Visscher (c. 1587-1652) in Amsterdam. Visscher added another 150 engravings – for a considerable part based on Antwerp designs – and published his picture bible, the Theatrum biblicum : hoc est historiae sacrae veteris et novi testamenti tabulis aeneis expressae in 1639. 

 

Our drawing is the modello for the engraved frontispiece of Visscher’s picture bible’s New Testament section (see ill.). Depicted are the three theological virtues – as set forth by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 – Fides (Faith), Spes (Hope) and Caritas (Charity, or Love) surrounded by the four Evangelists and their attributes. Seated on the central pedestal is the most important theological virtue Charitas, traditionally represented as a mother of three children. To her left we see St. John with his attribute, the Eagle, St. Luke with the ox, and Fides with her cross. To the right Hope, with her attribute the anchor, stands next to St. Mark with his lion, and St. Matthew with the angel. De Jode’s design was clearly meant to visually match the design of the Theatrum Biblicum’s general frontispiece, which likewise makes use of a central altar, here surrounded by Moses and Aaron to the left, and King David and a prophet to the right, thus referencing the Old Testament.  

 

While the stylistic coherence with Pieter de Jode the Elder’s output leaves no doubt about his authorship of the present design, this authorship is confirmed once more by the mentioning of his name (‘Pieter de Iode invent’) underneath a variant of the 1643 frontispiece – this time without the altar and the three theological virtues – used in a subsequent edition of the Theatrum Biblicum, the so-called Royal-Sized Bible, likewise published in Amsterdam, by Claes Jansz Visscher’s son, Nicolaes Visscher (1618-1679), c. 1652. 

 

The surfacing of our drawing confirms the suspicion that De Jode kept working on a new edition of his father’s Thesaurus with numerous new designs, if not ‘in-house’, then at least actively involved in the project after it had been adopted by another publisher, in all probability Claes Jansz Visscher in Amsterdam. The terminus ante quem for this involvement is obviously De Jode’s death in 1634, which seemingly implies that Visscher bought the copperplates before that date. A so-far unidentified watermark found in our sheet might shed more light on the chronology of De Jode’s contributions.