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- Nicolas van Aelst
- Also known as
-
Nicolas van Aelst
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primary name: Aelst, Nicolas van
- Details
- individual; printmaker; publisher/printer; dealer/auction house; Flemish; Italian; Male
- Life dates
- 1550s ?-1613
- Address
- shop at S. Maria della Pace, opposite San Biagio
- Biography
- Engraver, printer, print dealer and print publisher, from Brussels, working in Rome.
The most probable date for his birth was in the 1550s and the earliest print that we have seen with his address is dated 1587 (being the 12 plates of the Alfabeti). Described in 1606 as "stampore, istoriano e vendedor di disegni" alla Pace (Bertolotti). He acquired plates previously published by among others Facchetti, Orlandi, Salamanca and Gherardi (who had them from Lafreri, via Claudio Duchetti). He specialized in prints of the monuments of the ancient and modern Rome and of ceremonies and currents events. Published prints by Tempesta, Brambilla and Alberti among others. On the 13th of December of 1588 he was granted the papal privilege for prints of Roman monuments built or altered by Sixtus V (Hoogewerff 1922). His will which includes a list of plates was drawn up on 12 June 1612 (Lorizzo 2014). Record of death 19 July 1613 (Bertolotti p.227).
- Bibliography
- M. Bury, 'The Print in Italy 1550-1625', British Museum, London 2001, p.221, plus later corrections
Lewis, p. 229
C.L.E.Whitcombe, 'Print Publishing in sixteenth-century Rome', Turnhout, 2008, pp.272 and 360-70.
L. Lorizzo, 'Nicolas van Aelst's will and a list of his plates'. PQ, 2014, pp.3-20.
