Mattheus Borrekens or Mattheus BorkensAlso referred to as Mattias Boerrekens and Capiteyn Matthias Borckens (

Antwerp Antwerp (; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of Antwerp Province, and the third-largest city in Belgium by area at , after ...

, baptized on 7 July 1615 – Antwerp, 25 December 1670) was a

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

engraver, printmaker and draughtsman.Mattheus Borrekens
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: ), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center in the world. The center specializes in document ...

He was a reproductive artist and worked on some important publications in the Southern Netherlands. He mainly treated Christian religious subjects and portraits.P. Génard, ''Mattheus Borrekens, Plaetsnyder''
'De Vlaamsche school: algemeen tijdschrift voor kunsten en letteren', Buschmann, 1858, p. 11

Life

Mattheus Borrekens was born in Antwerp where he was baptized on 7 July 1615. He was the son of Abraham Borrekens and Elisabeth Janssens. His older brother Jan Baptist later became a painter and art dealer. Borrekens trained with Pieter de Jode the Younger and was registered as his pupil at the Antwerp

Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was iden ...

in the guild year 1634–1635. Borrekens became a master of the Antwerp

in the guild year 1635–1636.De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde
Volume 2, by Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius, Antwerp, 1864, pp. 65 and 72 He married Anna Uyt ten Eeckhout on 1 October 1639. The couple would have 9 children. Borrekens was active as a reproductive printmaker who made prints after the works of leading Flemish artists. He was also a captain of the local civil militia and was therefore referred to as Capiteyn Matthias Borckens. He died in Antwerp on 25 December 1670.

Work

Mattheus Borrekens was mainly a reproductive printmaker. He made prints after the work of leading Flemish painters of his time such as Rubens, van Dyck,

Erasmus Quellinus the Younger Erasmus Quellinus the Younger or Erasmus Quellinus II (November 19, 1607 – November 11, 1678) was a Flemish painter, engraver, draughtsman and tapestry designer who worked in various genres including history, portrait, allegorical, battle and ...

Abraham van Diepenbeeck Abraham van Diepenbeeck (9 May 1596 (baptised) – between May and September 1675) was a Dutch painter, draftsman, glass painter, print maker and tapestry designer who worked most of his active career in Antwerp.Jan Thomas van Ieperen Jan Thomas or Jan Thomas van Ieperen (5 February 1617 – 6 September 1673) was a Flemish Baroque painter, Drawing, draughtsman and printmaker. He was first active in Antwerp where he worked in the workshop of Rubens. He later became court ...

, Pieter van Lint and

Cornelis Schut Cornelis Schut (13 May 1597 – 29 April 1655) was a Flemish painter, drawing, draughtsman, engraver and tapestry designer who specialized in religious and mythological scenes. Presumed to have trained under Rubens, he treated Counter-Refor ...

. He mainly concentrated on Christian religious subjects and portraits. He also engraved frontispieces of publications such as Christophe Butkens's''Trophées tant sacrés et profanes du Duché de Brabant''. 1724–1726. For this publication he engraved after a design by van Diepenbeeck. His style is close to that of

Paulus Pontius Paulus Pontius (May 1603 – 16 January 1658) was a Flemish engraver and painter. He was one of the leading engravers connected with the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens. After Rubens' death, Pontus worked with other leading Antwerp painters suc ...

. He often engraved prints for the art market after the creations of other printmakers but also created his own designs. He collaborated on an important publication of portraits of the delegates to the peace negotiations for the

Peace of Münster The Peace of Münster, signed on 30 January 1648, was a treaty between Philip IV of Spain and the States-General of the Netherlands, Lords States General of the Dutch Republic. Negotiated in parallel to, but not part of, the Peace of Westphalia, ...

. This was a publication project of the Flemish painter

Anselm van Hulle Anselm van Hulle or Anselmus van Hulle (Ghent, Gent, 1601 - 1674/1694) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish painter mainly of portraits whose works were highly prized at the Northern European Courts. He was court painter to the Prince of Orange a ...

who was present in Münster where he had made portraits of the delegates to the conference. As court painter to the Prince of Orange, van Hulle had been able to obtain a printing privilege in March 1648. He had reproductions made from his sketches by Mattheus Borrekens and other leading engravers in Antwerp, such as

, Coenraet Waumans,

Cornelis Galle the Younger Cornelis Galle the Younger, Cornelius Galle or Cornelis Galle (I) (bapt. 23 February 1615, Antwerp – 18 October 1678, Antwerp) was a Flemish printmaker. He worked mainly on publications for the Plantin Press in Antwerp for which he engraved de ...

and

Pieter de Jode II Pieter de Jode II or Pieter de Jode the Younger (1606–1674) was a Flemish people, Flemish Baroque printmaker, draughtsman, painter and art dealer. A scion of an important dynasty of printmakers active in Antwerp, he created many prints after t ...

. The engravings were made on copper plates with a size of approximately 30 x 20 cm (Folio format) and printed on large-format paper sheets of up to 41 x 32 cm. The prints show the bust of the delegate in an oval in which his motto is inscribed, above him the coat of arms of the entity that the delegate represents at the peace negotiations, below the coat of arms of the delegate's family and below this a cartouche with the delegate's titles. The architectural framework of each portrait is in the form of an epitaph which emphasises that the portrait was made for posterity. In 1648 a first edition of the prints was published in Antwerp by Daniel Middeler under the title ''Celeberrimi legati ad pacificandum Christiani nominis orbem, legati ad Monasterium et Osnabrugas ex omni pene gentium nationumque genera missi. Ad vivum Anselmi v. Hulle penicillo expressi eiusque cura et aere per ingeniores huius aevi sculptores caelo representati''. This edition contained about 35 to 37 plates. The engravings were also sold individually, so that each diplomat could assemble a personal selection of portraits and have them bound with a specially printed title page. As a result, no two of these anthologies are the same in the selection and sequence of the sitters. In 1648 van Hulle had 39 engravings produced and in 1649 another 43. Borrekens created original engravings for this publication such as the portrait of Willem Ripperda, Johann Krane and others. These works show his ability in the creation of large format engravings and the design of the rich emblems.

Notes

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Borrekens, Mattheus Flemish engravers Draughtsmen from the Spanish Netherlands Painters from Antwerp 1670 deaths