Jan Willenberg (23 June 1571, Trzebnica – 3 October 1613, Prague) was a late-renaissance author of woodcuts, prints and drawings active in Moravia and Bohemia.

[3] Between 1600 and 1602 he travelled and prepared sketches of cities, in 1610 he went to Přerov and continued to Olomouc, Nysa and Wroclaw and returned to Prague.

[13] Willenberg most likely created already in 1590's several unsigned vedute and portraits in Milichthaler's print-shop for Zrcadlo slavného Margkrabství moravského (Olomouc 1593) by Bartosz Paprocki.

[6] In the subsequent period in Bohemia, during travels Willenberg captured several pen sketches of cities without any staffage and transformed them to fifteen simplified woodcuts for Diadochos, id est Successio jinák Posloupnost knížat a králův českých (Praha 1602) by Paprocki.

Another vedute of cities and castles were incorporated to twelve allegories of urban and rural life published in Kalendář Nowý s Pranostykau Hwězdářskau (most likely Prague 1603) by Kašpar Ladislav Stehlík.

[18] An extensive series of 47 illustrations by Willenberg were published in travelbook Putování aneb Cesta z Království českého do města Benátek, odtud po moři do Země svaté, Země judské a dále do Egypta a velikého města Kairu (Prague 1608) by Kryštof Harant, including depictions of contemporary foreign costumes, architecture, fauna, flora and also map of Mediterranean sea and views of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Cairo or mount Sinai could be attributed to him.

in Korunování Jeho Milosti Matyáše … na Království české (Prague 1611) and other publications by Jiří Závěta ze Závětic.

[14][1] Religious motives are as well part of Willenberg's work, for example picture of King David kneeling at altar in Vojenská ouprava krále Davida aneb Žalmové (Prague 1604), picture of angel and devil beating a seated person in Pokuty a trestání přestupníkův Božích přikázání (Prague 1613) by Matěj Poličanský or crucifixion in Svatej svatého divy a zázraky schváleného obcování život Ignácia Lojoly (Prague 1617) by Pedro de Ribadeneira.

[14] Despite the existence of copperplate engraving, which allowed much finer line drawing, Willenberg used the woodcut technique throughout his life.

[21][5] Willenberg's technique is quite cumbersome and the depiction of figure compositions is not as skilful as in the case of other artists like Joris Hoefnagel, Pieter Stevens II, Philipp van den Bossche or Aegidius Sadeler.

[1] In the case of views in Harant's travelbook, Willenberg followed sketches, but architecture is less precise in woodcuts and the landscape is very stylized.

[26] From Willenberg's preserved sketches of cities, later transferred to woodcuts in Diadochos (1602), it's apparent that he simplified the views and made them more associative than documentary.