Philip Galle
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Philip or Philips Galle (Haarlem 1537 – Antwerp March 1612) was best known as a publisher of old master prints, which he also produced as designer and engraver. He is especially known for his reproductive engravings of paintings.
He was born at Haarlem in the Netherlands, where he was a pupil of the humanist Dirck Volkertsz. Coornhert. In 1569 the series of Counts of Holland and Zeeland was published, a series of 6 engravings which he made in Haarlem, just before moving to Antwerp. The work contains an approbatio, which is a permission by the ecclesiastical (Roman Catholic) authorities to publish. Galle had a difficult relationship with religion and political power during his entire life. He was a friend of the Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin and perhaps part of the secretive humanist circle of the Family of Love, which makes it difficult to place him as Catholic or Protestant during the religious uprisings. From the end of 1569 or the start of 1570 he moved from Haarlem to Antwerp. He already had worked with Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp from 1557. He managed Cock's press and succeeded Cock in 1570 and was received as a citizen of Antwerp the following year. Many of his engravings were inspired by the drawings and designs of Maarten van Heemskerk. His first house in Antwerp was most probably a house called Het Gulden Hert (The Golden Deer) opposite the house of the Mapmaker Ortels (also known as Ortelius).
Some of his numerous pupils in Atwerp were: Anthonie van Blocklandt, Hans Bol, Marcus Gheeraerts, Gerard Groening, Johannes Stradanus, Maarten de Vos and Hans Vredeman de Vries. The map engraver Cornelis de Hooch, also mentioned as his pupil had received his education when Galle still lived in Haarlem, while De Hooch already worked for himself at the moment Galle moved to Antwerp.
Galle had two sons, Theodoor, and Cornelis who followed him as an engraver. Early works of Cornelis shows a striking similarity to the work of his father. Also an engraver was Cornelius's son, Cornelius Galle the Younger. He had many pupils in his expansive press and publishing house; his heirs in the Galle family carried on the business at Antwerp through the seventeenth century. His son-in-law was the engraver Adriaen Collaert who worked mostly for the family business.
Living in Antwerp, Galle witnessed numerous events of the Eighty Years War, notably the siege and looting of the town in 1585 by the Spaniards (The Spanish Fury). Galle wrote a short chronicle (Cort Verhael) about these events which was published around the end of 1578. This booklet, including several geographical maps, was dedicated to archduke Matthias of Austria, a relative of the legal king Philip II, but not recognised by him as a landvoogd (supervisor of the country). A later print was dedicated to Jean de Bourgogne, lord of Froidmont or Fromont. This rather personal book which was translated in several languages soon after its first publication, shows Galle as a peaceloving person who intended to stay far away from the political and military turmoil of his era.
