Michael Vandergucht ( Michiel van der Gucht; c. 1660 – 16 October 1725) 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 and painter who worked for most of his career in England.Shearer West, ''Vandergucht family (Gucht, van der)''
at Grove Art Online, accessed 20 March 2022 He engraved portraits, book illustrations, and architectural prints and painted portraits.''Michael Vandergucht (1660-1725), Engraver''
npg.org.uk. Accessed 2 July 2023.

Life

Michiel van der Gucht was born in

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 ...

, where he became a pupil of Frederik Bouttats the Younger.Michiel van der Gucht
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 registered as an apprentice in the Antwerp artists' guild, the

Guild of St 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 Four Evangelists, Evangelist Saint Luke, Luke, the patron sa ...

between 18 September 1672 and 18 September 1673.Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius (ed.), ''De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde''
Volume 2, Antwerp, Julius de Koninck, 1871, pp. 421, 424 He is recorded in Amsterdam when, on 19 June 1682, he posted banns to marry Maria van Hogenbergh van Aerschot. He lived on the Rosengracht in Amsterdam. He moved to England before July 1688. He trained his sons, Gerard Vandergucht (1696/97 — 1776) and Jan (John) Vandergucht (c. 1699 — c. 1730) and

George Vertue George Vertue (1684 – 24 July 1756) was an English engraver and antiquary, whose notebooks on British art of the first half of the 18th century are a valuable source for the period. Life Vertue was born in 1684 in St Martin-in-the-Fields ...

and James Smith as engravers. His son Gerard became one of the leading engravers in London, following the French method of combining precise engraving with the etched tones. Gerard had 30 children of whom one,

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

, was a successful engraver, picture restorer and painter. Michael Vandergucht died from gout in his house, the Golden Head in Queen Street,

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

, and was buried in the churchyard of St Giles-in-the-Fields.

Work

He engraved portraits, book illustrations, and architectural prints and painted portraits. He kept to a restrained form of engraving, without

etching Etching is traditionally the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio (incised) in the metal. In modern manufacturing, other chemicals may be used on other type ...

. His figures often appear wooden and uninspired. He provided many of the engravings for the first complete English translation of

Andrea Palladio Andrea Palladio ( , ; ; 30 November 1508 – 19 August 1580) was an Italian Renaissance architect active in the Venetian Republic. Palladio, influenced by Roman and Greek architecture, primarily Vitruvius, is widely considered to be on ...

's '' I quattro libri dell'architettura'' published in London in 1715. Most plates in the publication are reverse-copies of those in the original edition, but with measurements corrected by its editor and publisher,

Giacomo Leoni Giacomo Leoni (; 1686 – 8 June 1746), also known as James Leoni, was an List of Italian architects, Italian architect, born in Venice. He was a devotee of the work of Florence, Florentine Renaissance architecture, Renaissance architect Leon Ba ...

.''The Architecture Of A. Palladio; In Four Books. Containing, A short Treatise of the Five Orders, and the most necessary Observations concerning all sorts of Building, As Also The different Construction of Private and Publick Houses, High-Ways, Bridges, Market-Places, Xystes, and Temples, with their Plans, Sections, and Uprights. To which are added several Notes and Observations made by Inigo Jones, never printed before. Revis'd, Design'd, and Publish'd By Giacomo Leoni, a Venetian; Architect to his most Serene Highness, the Elector Palatine. Translated from the Italian Original.''
at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vandergucht, Michael 1660s births 1725 deaths 17th-century Flemish engravers 18th-century engravers Artists from Antwerp