Hieronymus Cock

Hieronymus Cock (1518 - 1570), or Hieronymus Wellens de Cock was a Flemish painter and etcher as well as a publisher and distributor of prints Cock was the most important print publisher of his time in northern Europe and played a key role in the transformation of printmaking from an activity of individual artists and craftsmen into an industry based on division of labour

Cock came from a well-known Antwerp painter's family His father, Jan Wellens de Cock, and older brother, Matthijs Cock, were also active as painters In 1545, Hieronymus joined the Antwerp Saint Lucas guild Although he was a member of this painter's guild, there is no single painting that can certainly be attributed to him He did, however, sign a few prints with 'H Cock pictor '(H Cock painter)

From 1546 to 1548 he studied and worked in Rome Here he carefully painted the monuments of ancient times, witnessing the edition in 1551 of a series of prints of his hand entitled Praecipua aliquot Romanae antiquitatis ruinarum monimenta (Some ruins of Roman antiquity) In addition, he contacted other engravers and publishers in Rome

Cock's enterprise played an important role in the spread of the Italian High Renaissance throughout northern Europe as Cock published prints made by prominent engravers such as Giorgio Ghisi, Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert and Cornelis Cort after the work of leading Italian painters like Raphael, Primaticcio, Bronzino, Giulio Romano and Andrea del Sarto The Italian historian of architecture Vincenzo Scamozzi copied many of the engravings published by Cock in 1551 for his volume on Rome entitled 'Discorsi sopra L'antichita di Roma' (Venice: Ziletti, 1583)

The majority of Cock's prints were made after paintings by artists from the Low Countries such as Frans Floris, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Lambert Lombard, Maarten van Heemskerck and Hieronymus Bosch as well as architectural and ornament designs by Cornelis Floris and Hans Vredeman de Vries In 1559 and 1561 he published two series of landscape prints by an anonymous Flemish draughtsman now referred to as the Master of the Small Landscapes The series of landscapes were drawn from nature in the vicinity of Antwerp and had an important influence on the development of Flemish and Dutch realist landscape art

Cock collaborated with the Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez on a 1562 Map of America

Hieronymus Cock collaborated with Antwerp architect and designer Cornelis Floris de Vriendt in the publishing of Cornelis Floris' designs for monuments and ornaments: the ‘’Veelderley niewe inuentien van antycksche sepultueren’’ (‘The many new designs of antique sculptures') was published in 1557 and the ‘’Veelderley veranderinghe van grotissen’’ (‘Many varieties of grotesques’) in 1556 The publication of these books contributed to the spread of the so-called Floris style throughout the Netherlands

The Dutch publisher Philip Galle worked at Cock's printing house from 1557 and succeeded him in 1570

A large part of the drawings in the work Discorsi sopra le antichità di Roma from 1582 by Vincenzo Scamozzi were actually copied from a work of Cock of the 1550s

Cock's publishing company played an important role in the distribution of the work of high renaissance masters like Rafael Santi, Michelangelo, Titian, Francesco Primaticcio and Andrea del Sarto in the Netherlands Conversely, compositions of Dutch painters were distributed Cock also bred niche markets, as evidenced by several prints entitled "Jheronimus Bosch inventor" (inventor Jheronimus Bosch) These prints with beggars, farmers, devils and monsters proved immensely popular

Cock died on October 3, 1570 His publishing house was continued after his death by his widow, Volcxken Diericx She led the workplace in Antwerp to Philips Galle After her death in 1600 many copper plates were sold to various studios where they were reused

At his death in 1570 he left behind the most prominent print publishing establishment in Europe north of the Alps His widow Volcxken Diericx continued the publishing house until her death in 1601 In 1572 she published a book by Dominicus Lampsonius called Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies (literal translation: Effigies of some celebrated painters of Lower Germany), a set of 23 engraved portraits of artists with short verses in Latin printed below them Hieronymus Cock had been working on this publication at the time of his death The quality of the 23 prints was outstanding as they had been made by some of the leading engravers of the time such as Jan Wierix, Adriaen Collaert and Cornelis Cort

The artists included in the book were (in the order in which they appear in the book): Hubert van Eyck, Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Rogier van der Weyden, Dirk Bouts, Bernard van Orley, Jan Mabuse, Joachim Patinir, Quentin Matsys, Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Amstel, Joos van Cleve, Matthys Cock, Herri met de Bles, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Jan van Scorel, Lambert Lombard, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Willem Key, Lucas Gassel, Frans Floris and ending with Hieronymus Cock The book includes a poem by Lampsonius dedicated to the memory of Hieronymus Cock and applauding the work of his widow The portraits and texts present an honour roll of the earlier generations of Netherlandish artists Their publication thus contributed to the formation of a canon of famous Netherlandish painters, which was well underway even before Karel van Mander published in 1604 his biographies of early and contemporary Netherlandish artists in his Schilder-boeck

The publisher Hendrik Hondius I published in 1610 a book with almost the same title ('Pictorum aliquot celebrium, præcipué Germaniæ Inferioris', in English: 'Effigies of some celebrated painters, chiefly of Lower Germany') that contained 69 engraved portraits of painters Hondius' work included in its first part reworked versions of 22 of the portraits of the 1572 publication The portrait of Hieronymus Cock (often numbered 23) was not included by Hondius maybe because the likeness was made after death, rather than drawn "ad vivum" (after the living model) as was the case for the other portraits
https://hisour.com/artist/hieronymus-cock/