Perseus Liberating Andromeda

This engraving was made soon after de Gheyn left Goltzius’s workshop and began to publish his own works with Amsterdam publishers. In this period, he often worked from designs by Karel van Mander (1548? 1606), the worldly-wise artist who earned distinction in Rome (1574? 1576) and in Vienna as an assistant to Bartholomeus Spranger (1577). Van Mander returned to Haarlem in 1583 and at the end of the decade, de Gheyn began to collaborate with him, creating 48 prints from van Mander’s designs. The engraver was able to adjust his style to the pictorial elegance of the designs which he reproduced by way of subtle incisions. Their characteristic silver tone and dreamy artistic expression distinguishes them from the plastic volumes of Hendrick Goltzius and his followers.