Johannes Wierix

[4] The three Wierix brothers gained a reputation for their disorderly conduct as evidenced by a 1587 letter by Plantin to the Jesuit priest Ferdinand Ximenes in which he complained that whoever wanted to employ the Wierix brothers had to look for them in the taverns, pay their debts and fines and recover their tools, since they would have pawned them.

[4] Upon returning to Antwerp in 1579, Johannes Wierix worked not only for Plantin, but also for other publishers such as Hans Liefrinck, Jan-Baptist Vrients, Phillip Galle, Gerard de Jode, Willem van Haecht, Godevaard van Haecht and Hieronymous Cock's widow Volcxken Dierix who continued the publishing business after her husband's death.

Johannes Wierix was so much in demand that he could exact such a high price for his work that Plantin was not always able or willing to engage him for a publication project.

He may already have moved to Brussels by 1601 as on 28 July of that year he failed to appear in Antwerp in the settlement of a deal involving family property.

Some engravings of Johannes have been misattributed to his brother Hieronymous because he signed some of his works with the monogram IHW or HW, in which the H stands for one of the short forms of his name, i.e. Hans.

[3] Another important publication he worked on was the set of 23 engraved portraits of artists from the Low Countries authored by Dominicus Lampsonius and published in 1572 under the title Pictorum aliquot celebrium Germaniae inferioris effigies (literal translation: Effigies of some celebrated painters of Lower Germany).

[5] Besides inventing his own compositions, Wierix engraved the designs of Frans Floris, Gillis Mostaert and Crispin van den Broeck.

The only signed silverpoint drawing by his hand is a portrait of Hieronymus Beck (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig) and is a study in reverse for his engraving of the same subject.

This is particularly evident in the margins, which are filled with precisely drawn acanthus scrolls, devices, and naturalistic renderings of flowers, insects and small animals.

Such engravings, in particular of ivory plaques, were incorporated into luxurious small cabinets or chests, but were also set into frames as independent works of art.

An Adoration of the Magi (dated to 1590–1600, Walters Art Museum) engraved on ivory shows Wierix' refined technique.