Pieter van der Borcht the Elder

[2] Pieter van der Borcht the Elder also introduced new themes, such as the "monkey scene" (also called singerie) into Northern art.

[3] Pieter van der Borcht is recorded in 1564 as working from Mechelen for Christopher Plantin, who operated a famous book printing and publishing enterprise in Antwerp.

A letter of Plantin testifies to the fact that the departure from Mechelen of the van der Borcht family must have been very sudden, as on their arrival in Antwerp both parents were sick and their children naked.

The final illustration is an image of the Virgin Mary holding the symbol of the city of Mechelen and was signed "Fecit Petrus van der Boercht 1552".

This was followed by a commission in 1565 to make 60 drawings of plants for a herbarium written by Rembert Dodoens, the Frumentorum, leguminum, palustrium et aquatilium herbarum historia.

Both author and publisher were very happy with the quality of van der Borcht's drawings and he became the regular illustrator for Plantin's numerous botanical books.

These drawings were the basis for woodcuts made by three of Plantin's regular woodcutters known by name: Arnold Nicolaï, and later Gerard van Kampen and Cornelis Muller.

[4] He may have been responsible for a number of engravings of peasant weddings, country fairs and feasts after the work of contemporary Flemish painters such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, as well as of mythological and historical subjects.

[12] Pieter van der Borcht the Elder contributed to the spread of the genre of the "monkey scene", also called singerie (a word, which in French means a 'comical grimace, behaviour or trick').

[6] A landscape painting attributed to Pieter van der Borcht (I) entitled The Rest on the Flight into Egypt is part of the collection of the Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries in the United Kingdom.