Courtly Experiments: Early Portrait Etchings by Lucas van Leyden and Jan Gossart

For a brief moment in the early sixteenth-century Low Countries, etching became a significant technique for elite commissions. I examine the two earliest etchings made in the Low Countries as a case study: the portrait of Maximilian I by Lucas van Leyden and the portrait of Charles V by Jan Gossart, both made for the Hapsburg-Burgundian court in 1520. The etching technique was integral to the success of the two portrait prints, for both artists as well as their patron. This is a localized instance of artistic emulation and competition within the emergence of a new technique and subject: the Netherlandish portrait print.