Portret van Pieter Brueghel I 1682

Edme de Boulonois made this print of Pieter Brueghel I. The proliferation of printed portraits in early modern Europe helped to construct a visual culture of celebrity. In this print, Bruegel is shown in profile, bearded, and wearing a cap, an image created after the artist's death that perpetuates a certain myth around his persona as a northern Renaissance artist. The Latin inscription "Petro Brvegel Pictori" elevates Bruegel to the level of celebrated intellectual. Prints like this one were a popular way of circulating images of artists beyond their immediate circle. They were bought and sold in print shops, bound into books, and collected by art lovers. A historian will consider the economy of printmaking, looking at how images were produced, distributed, and consumed. To understand this image of Bruegel better, we can look to archival sources that tell us about the print market in the 17th and 18th centuries and the collecting habits of the time.