Every great painter needs help carrying their work beyond the studio walls. In the seventeenth century, that job fell to engravers, the reproductive printmakers who turned paintings into portable, collectable images seen by people who'd never step inside the artist's studio. In an era before photography their prints were how an artist's name and style spread across Europe. For Peter Paul Rubens, the engraver who did this best was Paulus Pontius. He was a craftsman whose skill with a burin enabled Rubens' canvases to reach patrons who would otherwise never see the originals. It's one of the great untold stories of art history; let's go!
Tomyris and the Head of Cyrus ("Satia te Sanguine Quem Semper Sitisti") by Peter Paul Rubens, engraved by Paulus Pontius, 1630
Born in Antwerp on 27 May 1603, Pontius trained first under still-life painter Osias Beert before learning engraving under Lucas Vorsterman, one of the finest reproductive engravers of the age. When Vorsterman fell out with Rubens and left for England in 1624, Pontius stepped into the vacated role of engraver and joined Rubens's household. He lived and worked there from 1624 to 1631 (most sources agree he moved out on the occasion of his first marriage), studying the paintings he was tasked with translating into print up close.
Christ Carrying the Cross ("Iesus Baiulans Crucem") by Peter Paul Rubens, engraved by Paulus Pontius, 1632
How Paulus Pontius Brought Rubens' Art to Europe
Over his career, Pontius was entrusted with producing 42 plates after Rubens' paintings. In the seventeenth century, an engraving was often the way a painting reached the wider world; a patron in Vienna or Madrid who would never see the original in Antwerp could still own a faithful, collectable version on paper. Pontius earned his master's admission to the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1626–27, cementing his place in a city that was, at the time, one of the great centres of printmaking in Europe.
What set him apart was restraint; Pontius built his style on precise, accurate line work rather than flourish, with a rare gift for suggesting light and even colour using just black ink. Several of his Rubens plates were portraits of Spanish Netherlands royalty, including the king and queen of Spain and their governors and ministers.
The Christ Child Trampling the Serpent, after Anthony van Dyck, engraved by Paulus Pontius, c. 1620s–30s
Pontius' reputation didn't end with Rubens' death in 1640. He went on to work with Anthony van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens, two key figures of Flemish painting. He contributed more plates to Van Dyck's Iconography (a celebrated series of portrait prints depicting the leading artists, scholars, and statesmen of the day), than any other printmaker involved in the project. His portraits also appeared in Johannes Meyssens' Images de divers hommes, Cornelis de Bie's Het Gulden Cabinet, and Anselm van Hulle's Icones legatorum.
Saint Sebastian by Gerard Seghers, engraved by Paulus Pontius, 1616–1657
Pontius married three times, to Christina Herselin, Catlyne van Eck, and Helena Schryvers, and stayed based in Antwerp for his entire career. He died there on 16 January 1658, having spent more than three decades in the heart of the city's printmaking trade during its golden age.
Christ Appointing St Roch as Patron Saint of Plague Victims ("Sancte Roche Ora Pro Nobis") — after Rubens' altarpiece in St Martin's Church, Aalst, by Peter Paul Rubens, engraved by Paulus Pontius, 1626
The Enduring Legacy of Paulus Pontius
Contemporaries and later critics praised how Pontius rendered his sitters: expressive and faithful to the source, without the exaggeration that could easily creep into portrait engraving. The combination of accuracy and warmth made him one of the most sought-after portrait engravers of his generation.
Pontius' engravings survive today in major collections including the Met, the Frick, Harvard Art Museums, and the Städel Museum. They provide an important piece of the historical record of how the original artist's work was seen and circulated in its own time, and are extraordinary technical achievements in their own right.
Our Lady Surrounded by Saints (the Rubens family epitaph, St James' Church, Antwerp) ("Laudate Dominum in Sanctis Eius") by Peter Paul Rubens, engraved by Paulus Pontius (published by Gillis Hendricx)
