Bildnis des Gillis van Breen, 1588

About the Work

According to an old memo, Gillis van Breen was Goltzius’s “art printer”; he probably played an important role in the artist’s workshop. The fact that Goltzius executed several portraits of van Breen in which he experimented in one way or another suggests that the two men were on friendly terms. The most well-known of these portraits is the chalk drawing in the Städel Museum collection. It is the earliest example of an entire series of large-scale coloured portrait drawings primarily of artists, executed by Goltzius in Holland and Italy in the period around 1590.