Lucas Vorsterman – Deploration

Monogram LV

Vorsterman was born in Zaltbommel. Around 1618, Vorsterman joined Rubens’ workshop. Between 1619 and 1621, Vorsterman was Rubens’s sole engraver. At that time, Rubens had embarked upon a printmaking enterprise in which he enlisted Vorsterman to engrave a number of his notable paintings, to which Rubens appended personal and professional dedications to noteworthy individuals.

In 1624, Vorsterman went to England and survived on the patronage of royalty and nobility. He returned to Antwerp in 1630 and was one of the printmakers selected by Van Dyck to engrave plates for his Iconography. Vorsterman executed twenty-two of the original eighty plates. Vorsterman lost his sight in his old age and he lived in poverty.