Philip (orPhilips)Galle (1537 – March 1612) was a Dutch publisher, best known for publishingold master prints, which he also produced as designer andengraver. He is especially known for his reproductiveengravings of paintings.
Galle was born inHaarlem in theNetherlands, where he was a pupil of the humanist and engraverDirck Volkertsz. Coornhert. According to the RKD, he married Catharina van Rollant on 9 June 1569. They had five children who later became active as artists:Theodoor,Cornelis,Philips II, Justa (who married the engraverAdriaen Collaert) and Catharina (who married the engraverKarel de Mallery).[1]
In Haarlem he engraved several works of the Haarlem painterMaarten van Heemskerck. Even while he worked from 1557 for the Antwerp publisherHieronymus Cock, he established himself as an independent printer in Haarlem in 1563, where he made prints afterJohannes Stradanus andMaerten de Vos.[1] In 1569 the series of Counts of Holland and Zeeland was published, a series of six engravings which he made in Haarlem withWillem Thibaut, just before moving to Antwerp somewhere near the end of 1569 or the start of 1570, probably to avoid theSiege of Haarlem.
His first house in Antwerp was most probably a house called Het Gulden Hert (The Golden Deer), opposite the house of the mapmaker Ortels (also known asOrtelius). He managed Cock's press and succeeded Cock in 1570 and was received as a citizen of Antwerp the following year. The work contains anapprobatio, or permission from the ecclesiastical (Roman Catholic) authorities to publish. Galle had a difficult relationship with religion and political power during his entire life. He was a friend of the Antwerp printerChristopher Plantin and perhaps part of the secretivehumanist circle of theFamilia Caritatis (Family of Love), which makes it difficult to place him as Catholic or Protestant during theDutch Revolt.
Some of his numerous prints made in Antwerp were afterAnthonie van Blocklandt,Hans Bol,Marcus Gheeraerts, Gerard Groening, andHans Vredeman de Vries. Galle had many pupils who became popular engravers. The map engraverCornelis de Hooghe (or Hogius),[2] who later died a gruesome death when he was beheaded and quartered in the Hague because of a conspiracy against the state, received his education when Galle still lived in Haarlem, while De Hooghe already worked for himself at the moment Galle moved to Antwerp.
Galle's son Cornelis followed him as an engraver. Early works by Cornelis shows a striking similarity to the work of his father.
Philip Galle's press and publishing house was a success. His pupils included his children, de Hooghe,Hendrick Goltzius,Jan Baptist Barbé, Pieter Nagel, the sons of his colleagueHans Collaert Adriaen andJan, andKarel van Mallery. His sons and sons-in-law carried on the business at Antwerp through the seventeenth century.
As a resident of Antwerp, Galle witnessed numerous events of theEighty Years War, notably thesiege and looting of the town in 1576 by the Spaniards, called "The Spanish Fury". Galle wrote aCort Verhael, a short chronicle of these events, which was published around the end of 1578. This booklet, which included several maps, was dedicated to archdukeMatthias of Austria, a relative of the legal kingPhilip II of Spain, but not recognised by him as alandvoogd or supervisor of the country. A later print was dedicated to Jean de Bourgogne, lord of Froidmont or Fromont. This rather personal book, which was translated in several languages soon after its first publication, shows Galle as a peace-loving person who intended to stay far away from the political and military turmoil of his era.
He died inAntwerp in March 1612.[1]
Pictures from theTheatri Orbis Terrarum Enchiridion 1585
Engravings attributed to Galle
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![Discordia.[3]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aDiscordia_print_by_Philip_Galle%2c_S.I_1737%2c_Prints_Department%2c_Royal_Library_of_Belgium.jpg)
The Seven Sacraments (1576) with Hans Bol
