Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sales catalogue 533: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.
21/294 page 5
![Antwerp. Gerard Leeu: a.D. 1484-1493. Gerard Leeu came to Antwerp from Gouda, where he had been the sole printer from 1477 until shortly before his removal in 1484. At Antwerp Mathias van der Goes had already been printing three years when Leeu published his first book in September, 1484. Leeu’s last production was an edition of the Chronicles of Eng- land, while printing which in 1493, he was killed by one of his workmen in the course of a quarrel. Gerard Leeu was certainly Antwerp’s best printer of the fifteenth century. His illustrated books are famous. From 1486 Leeu had the services of the fine wood- cutter who had previously worked for Bellaert at Haarlem. In 1486 this artist illustrated the Historia van Parys ende Vienna with a cycle of 25 prints in semi-folio (see Schretlen, Dutch and Flemish woodcuts of the fifteenth century, plates 42-44). In 1487 Gerard Leeu published a Ludolphus, which contains several folio-woodcuts by this artist. The last work, showing the artist at the height of his power and revealing his very graceful style, is the set of illustrations of Hoofkyn van Devotien published by Leeu 28 November, 1487. Devices: (1) Large woodcut of the Castle of Antwerp, with the banners of the Holy Roman Empire and the Archduke Maximilian flying from the centre tower; (2) a lion framed in a trefoil holding, left, the shield of Antwerp, and, right, a shield bearing the house-mark of the press; (3) a small shield bearing the house-mark of the press, accompanied by the shield of Antwerp. [5]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31814323_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
No text description is available for this image
No text description is available for this image
No text description is available for this image