Frans Crabbe van Espleghem was a Flemish artist born c. 1480 Mechelen, Belgium, d. 1553 Mechelen, Belgium.
Frans Crabbe began exploring printmaking after Albrecht Dürer's visit to the Netherlands in 1521. Crabbe was known for doing engravings, etchings and woodcuts.
Early artists did not sign their names or identify themselves as the maker of the work in any way. At some point artists began adding discrete logos, monograms, initials, etc. to their works but in a number of cases the actual artist has not been identified. Where the artist has not been identified, all works done with the particular logo are assumed to have been done by the same artist and are referred to by the identifying marks e.g.: The Master E.S or Master I.B with the Bird.
Crabbe was initially known as "Master of the Crayfish". This was based on a crayfish type logo in his prints.
As per Hind: [1]
Friedlander positively identified the "Master of the Crayfish" as being Frans Crabbe in 1921. [2]
In art history, "Old Master" refers to any painter of skill who worked in Europe before about 1800, or a painting by such an artist. An "old master print" is an original print made by an artist in the same period. The term "old master drawing" is used in the same way.
Lucas van Leyden, also named either Lucas Hugensz or Lucas Jacobsz, was a Dutch painter and printmaker in engraving and woodcut. Lucas van Leyden was among the first Dutch exponents of genre painting and was a very accomplished engraver.
Cornelis Cort was a Dutch engraver and draughtsman. He spent the last 12 years of his life in Italy, where he was known as Cornelio Fiammingo.
Johann Adam Bernhard Ritter von Bartsch was an Austrian scholar and artist. His catalogue of old master prints is the foundation of print history, and he was himself a printmaker practicing engraving and etching.
Master of the Housebook and Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet are two names used for an engraver and painter working in South Germany in the last quarter of the 15th century. He is apparently the first artist to use drypoint, a form of engraving, for all of his prints. The first name derives from his book of drawings with watercolour, called the Housebook, which belonged to the German noble family of Waldburg-Wolfegg from the 17th century until 2008, when they were reported to have sold it for €20 million to a Swiss buyer; however, the legality of its sale for export has been challenged and, for the moment, it remains with the family. In 1999, the book was lent to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., for an exhibition. The majority of his surviving prints are in the print room at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, hence his second name. Most, but not all, art historians still agree that the Housebook and the prints are by the same artist.
An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. The term remains current in the art trade, and there is no easy alternative in English to distinguish the works of "fine art" produced in printmaking from the vast range of decorative, utilitarian and popular prints that grew rapidly alongside the artistic print from the 15th century onwards. Fifteenth-century prints are sufficiently rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term.
The Master of the Playing Cards was the first major master in the history of printmaking. He was a German engraver, and probably also a painter, active in southwestern Germany - probably in Alsace, from the 1430s to the 1450s, who has been called "the first personality in the history of engraving."
Mayken Verhulst, also known as Marie Bessemers, was a sixteenth-century miniature, tempera and watercolor painter, identified by Lodovico Guicciardini in 1567 as one of the four most important female artists in the Low Countries. She was actively engaged in the workshop of her husband, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, posthumously publishing his works. While she is recognized as an exceptionally skilled artist, little is known about her works or life as there are few surviving attributable sources of information.
The Illustrious Brotherhood of Our Blessed Lady was a religious confraternity founded in 1318 in 's-Hertogenbosch to promote the veneration of the Mother of God. The brotherhood was organized around a carved wooden image of the Virgin Mary in St John’s Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch. The Brotherhood had two types of members: ordinary members and sworn members, also called 'swan-brethren' because they used to donate a swan for the yearly banquet. Sworn members were clerics in principle; in fact they were often chosen among the nobility, the magistrates, etc. As a result, the Brotherhood also functioned as an important social network.
Giovanni Antonio da Brescia was an Italian engraver of northern Italy, active in the approximate period 1490–1519, during the Italian Renaissance. In his early career he used the initials "Z.A." to sign some twenty engravings, and until recently Zoan Andrea was regarded as a distinct printmaker; it is now realized that they are the same person, and the "Z.A." stood for Giovanni Antonio, "Zovanni" being a north Italian spelling. Around 1507 he began to use formulae such as "IO.AN.BX.", and signed some prints more fully. The real Zoan Andrea was a very obscure painter, documented as working in Mantua in the 1470s, who produced no engravings.
Giulio Bonasone was an Italian painter and engraver born in Bologna. He possibly studied painting under Lorenzo Sabbatini, and painted a Purgatory for the church of San Stefano, but all his paintings have been lost. He is better known as an engraver and is believed to have trained with Marcantonio Raimondi. He worked mainly in Mantua, Rome and Venice and with great success, producing etchings and engravings after the old masters and his own designs. He signed his plates B., I.B., Julio Bonaso, Julio Bonasone, Juli Bonasonis, Julio Bolognese Bonahso.
The Little Masters, were a group of German printmakers who worked in the first half of the 16th century, primarily in engraving. They specialized in very small finely detailed prints, some no larger than a postage stamp. The leading members were Hans Sebald Beham, his brother Barthel, and George Pencz, all from Nuremberg, and Heinrich Aldegrever and Albrecht Altdorfer. Many of the Little Masters' subjects were mythological or Old Testament stories, often treated erotically, or genre scenes of peasant life. The size and subject matter of the prints shows that they were designed for a market of collectors who would keep them in albums, of which a number have survived.
Benedetto Montagna was an Italian engraver and painter. Montagna was born in Vicenza, the son of the leading painter of the city, Bartolomeo Montagna, with whom he trained and perhaps continued to work. His approximately 53 engravings seem to have been produced in the period from about 1500 until his father died in 1523 and he inherited the workshop; in these years he was "the most prolific engraver of his generation in northern Italy". He ran the workshop into at least the 1540s, but his paintings fell behind the development of Italian styles as they largely follow his father's style, less successfully. Many do not survive. His prints are generally found more significant by art historians.
The Master of the Banderoles was an anonymous engraver who is thought to have worked in the northern Netherlands, perhaps in Geldern or Overijssel. He is named for his use of "banderoles", or speech scrolls in his prints. His technique has been characterized as "crude" and "clumsy", and most of the 130 engravings attributed to him are copies after other artists such as Master E. S. and Rogier van der Weyden. Arthur Mayger Hind similarly describes the artist as "of small original power, but of some interest as a copyist".
Jacob Neefs or Jacob Neeffs was a Flemish etcher, engraver and publisher. He worked on publication projects for prominent Flemish artists of his time including Rubens, van Dyck and Jordaens.
Pieter van der Borcht (I) or Peter van der Borcht was a Flemish Renaissance painter, draughtsman and etcher. He is regarded as one of the most gifted botanical painters of the 16th century. Pieter van der Borcht the Elder also introduced new themes such as the 'monkey scene' into Northern art.
Forest Marsh with Travellers on a Bank (1640s-1650s), also known as The Travellers, is an etching by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jacob van Ruisdael. A few copies are known, including those in the collections of the British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Rijksprentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, and Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam.
Giovanni Battista Palumba, also known as the Master I.B. with a Bird, was an Italian printmaker active in the early 16th century, making both engravings and woodcuts; he is generally attributed with respectively 14 and 11 of these. He appears to have come from northern Italy, but later worked in Rome. He specialized in subjects from classical mythology, as well as the inevitable religious subjects. Despite his relatively small output, he was a sophisticated artist, whose style shows a number of influences and changes, reflecting awareness of the currents in artistic style at the start of the High Renaissance. The signed prints are usually dated to around 1500–1511.
Master MZ was an engraver active in south Germany around 1500. He signed his 22 engravings with his monogram "MZ", and six are dated, all 1500, 1501 or 1503. He worked in Munich in Bavaria, and in 1500 seems to have been connected to the court of Albert IV, Duke of Bavaria. There are complicated but inconclusive arguments for and against identifying him with a goldsmith called Matthäus Zaisinger, a painter known as Master MS, and other figures.
