Boetius à Bolswert

[3] In his time the paintings of Peter Paul Rubens called forth new endeavours by engravers to imitate or reproduce the breadth, density of mass and dynamic illumination of those works.

[5] Reproductions of large landscapes by Vinckboons and Gillis van Coninxloo III were among his early successes, employing a dense and diffuse technique, in a genre to which he later made transforming contributions.

Rosweyde dedicated the Bolswert work to his benefactor, Abbot Antoine de Wynghe of Liessies Abbey, Département Nord, France.

It was evidently a companion-book to Rosweyde's major Latin work Vitae Patrum, Lives of the Fathers (biographies of early Church hermits), of 1615,[11] a compilation from which was produced at Antwerp in 1619 by Jan van Gorcum.

[19] In 1639 Aertssens printed Bolswert's plates for the retelling of the mediaeval story[20] of The Miracle of Amsterdam by Leonard Marius (Goesanus) (1588–1652), Roman Catholic priest at the Begijnhof.

[22] Boetius à Bolswert soon established his engraving press in Holland, but he maintained a more extensive publishing house in Belgium: he now took his subjects from Rubens and from other Flemish painters, and himself attempted work in the field of composition.