Christoffel van Dijck

Christoffel van Dijck (c. 1600-5, Dexheim – November 1669, Amsterdam)[a] was a German-born Dutch punchcutter and typefounder, who cut punches and operated a foundry for casting metal type.

[14][13] Van Dijck then changed career to become a specialist in cutting steel punches, the masters used to stamp matrices, the moulds used to cast a letterform in metal type.

Lane, a historian of printing in the Netherlands and expert on van Dijck's career, speculates that he may have begun by cutting types for other typefounders.

"[23] Max Caflisch felt that a distinguishing feature of van Dijck's types were that "the contrast between the hair lines and the main strokes is more pronounced...the capital letters are more powerful...the typeface in general appears to have been cut more sharply".

[4] The polymath Joseph Moxon, who knew him, praised the Dutch types of the period for "commodious fatness they have beyond other letters which easing the eyes in reading, renders them more legible" and van Dijck's in particular for the "harmony and decorum of their symmetry" and the "good reason for his order and method.

[29] Understanding of van Dijck's career has been limited by a lack of knowledge of what types he cut: as was common for pre-nineteenth century printing materials a large proportion of his punches and matrices were lost due to changing artistic tastes in favour of "modern face" typefaces, being destroyed from around 1808 by Enschedé at a time when it was also in financial difficulties, although some survive at Enschedé,[30] and others in the collection of Oxford University Press.

[31] An impressive but jumbled specimen was issued by the widow of Daniel Elzevir in 1681 offering what had been his foundry for sale, of which a single copy survives in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp.

[3] A specimen issued by van Dijck in 1668/1669 was found to exist in the National Archives in London by historian Justin Howes;[35] according to Lane as of 2013 it had yet to be published.

[37] Besides this, on the 1681 specimen a number of other types are also known to be by Granjon, Claude Garamond, Hendrik van den Keere and possibly Pierre Haultin.

[57] Moxon, who spent time in the Netherlands as a child and later met van Dijck on returning as an adult, wrote soon after his death that "Holland letters in general are in most esteem, and particularly those that have been cut by the hand of that curious artist Christofel van Dijck, and some very few others...when the Stadthouse at Amsterdam was finishing, such was the curiosity of the Lords that were the Overseers of the building, that they offered C. van Dijck aforesaid 80 Pounds Sterling (as himself told me) only for drawing in paper the names of the several offices that were to be painted over the doors, for the painter to paint by"[58] and also praised them extensively in his Mechanick Exercises of 1683.

"[67] Abraham van Dijck suffered from poor health, and his steadily declining condition forms a large part of Marshall's correspondence.

This detail of a map by Balthasar Florisz. van Berckenrode (1647) shows the Elandsstraat and the Hazenstraat in the middle; a little bit down is the location of two houses under one roof with a portal (to an inn), a barn and a garden.
Blackletter types by van Dijck compared to those cut by Joan Michael Fleischman in the following century.
Yisus vordi (Jesus the son), a book printed by Van Dijck's client Matteos Tsaretsi in 1661. The body text uses van Dijck's Text bolorgir Armenian type. [ 28 ]
The widow of Daniel Elsevier's type specimen offering van Dijck's foundry for sale in 1681 (facsimile). [ 65 ] Not all the types shown are by van Dijck.
Some of van Dijck's materials (not shown in photo) are preserved by Oxford University Press .
In the 17th century, behind Elandsstraat 84 (image shows later building), with an entrance through a portal, was a garden with a barn and a backhouse, where Van Dijck and his assistants worked.