HAELBECK, Jan van

Flemish engraver. He was mainly active in Paris in the first 30 years of the 17th century and helped introduce copper engraving as a technique in French printing. He worked on various publication projects on religious and worldly subjects and portraits.

Very little is known about the life of Jan van Haelbeck. It is known he was active in Paris roughly between 1600 and 1630. In Paris, he was part of a group of émigré Flemish engravers who helped transform French engraving practices. The Flemish engravers popularised copper engraving as a technique in French printing. They also introduced certain compositional schemes and subjects such as portraiture familiar to Flemish printmakers into French publishing.

Van Haelbeck is known to have had a relationship with the Copenhagen royal court and is sometimes referred to as the court artist of King Christian IV of Denmark. He was one of the principal artists who contributed the illustrations to Italian fencing master Salvator Fabris’s “Lo Schermo, overo Scienza d’Arme,” which was published in 1606 in Copenhagen with royal support. The publication was the first publication made with copperplates in Denmark. It is possible that van Haelbeck was visiting or working in Copenhagen around 1624.

Jan van Haelbeck worked on many publication projects. Some of these were original creations. Others were re-engravings of popular works published earlier. An example of the latter is the publication Ecclesiae Militantis Triumphi published by Jean Leclerc in Paris in the early 1600s. This publication was a reworking in laterally reversed format of a 1585 Jesuit publication, which comprised 32 prints engraved by Giovanni Battista de’Cavalieri depicting in graphic detail the martyrdoms of various saints.

It is believed that Jan van Haelbeck made the engravings for the “Livre de portraiture d’Annibal Carrache,” a study book on portrait drawing by Annibale Carracci which was published in 1667 by François de Poilly in Paris.

Jan van Haelbeck engraved a series of prints, which were published in Paris by Jean Leclerc around 1615 under the title “Énigme joyeuse pour les bons esprits.” The images created by van Haelbeck are accompanied by verses in French that are full of double-entendres of an obscene nature. Van Haelbeck’s series was very popular and was regularly reprinted as illustrations in publications of an indelicate sort that were principally marketed to Europe’s university students. Versions of various of the engravings appear, for instance, in a number of tomes by German printmaker Peter Rollos the Elder (active 1619-1639), published in Germany between 1619 and the late 1630s.

Jan van Haelbeck produced a number of portraits including of Henri IV of France and the Venetian doge Leonardo Donato.