Village Road, plate 20 from "Regiunculae et Villae Aliquot Ducatus Brabantiae"
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
Sheet: 4 1/16 × 6 3/16 in. (10.3 × 15.7 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1933
Accession Number
33.52.24
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate etching, created around 1610 by Claes Jansz. Visscher, captures a quiet village road winding through the Duchy of Brabant in the southern Netherlands. Part of the series *Regiunculae et Villae Aliquot Ducatus Brabantiae* (“Some Small Regions and Villages of the Duchy of Brabant”), the print belongs to a tradition of “Small Landscapes” that celebrated everyday rural scenes rather than grand estates or biblical settings. Visscher, working in the early Dutch Golden Age, translated these views into intimate, portable prints that brought the countryside into urban homes. Measuring ju...
About the Artist
Claes Jansz. Visscher|Claes Jansz. Visscher|The Master of the Small Landscapes · 1586–1652
Claes Jansz. Visscher, also known as Nicolas Joannis Visscher II or Joannis Piscator, was a prominent Dutch Golden Age draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker, and publisher born in Amsterdam in 1587 and died there on June 19, 1652. The son of the printmaker and publisher Jan Claesz. Visscher (c. 1550–1612), he learned the art of etching and printing from his father, helping to expand the family trade int...