Hendrik Goltzius

As a small child Hendrik Goltzius fell into a fire and burned his right hand so badly that it healed clawed and half-closed. He became the most brilliant engraver in Europe with it. Gripping the burin in that damaged hand, he cut lines into copper that swell and taper with a control no one had matched, building tone out of pure engraved line.

Working in Haarlem, he could imitate the style of any old master so exactly that his prints fooled collectors, and he once made a set of engravings in the manner of Durer and passed them off, briefly, as genuine. His figures twist in the elegant, muscular Mannerist fashion of the late 16th century. Only around 1600, already over 40, did Goltzius largely put down the burin and take up painting in oils. He kept a busy Haarlem workshop until his death in 1617.