Jesus Christ. Plate 12. From: Christ and the Apostles

Lambert Suavius (a.k.a. Lambert Zutman) (c. 1510-1574-6), was a South Netherlandish printmaker, architect and poet. He was the son of the church goldsmith Henri Zutman. He became a follower of his brother-in-law, Lambert Lombard, whose work was sometimes confused with his. Suavius became an independent master in 1539, when he married and bought a house in Liège. In the same year he purchased a glazier's stylus with a diamond point, which he used in addition to the standard engraver's burin to obtain a wider range of effects in his prints.

He travelled to Italy, probably in the 1550s. His updated series of Views of Various Ruins including the Colosseum, evidently done in Rome, is executed entirely in etching, while his extensive series of portraits of the Roman emperors is done in a highly original mixture of engraving, drypoint and etching. He also engraved portraits of Michelangelo and Albrecht Dürer, using a medal as a prototype for the latter. 

This is the twelfth of 14 engravings depicting Christ, St Paul and the Twelve Apostles; Te Papa owns every print in the series apart from the extremely scarce St Thomas. They were originally probably bound in a volume with nine other series by the same artist. It is possible that this entire volume was printed by Volcxken Diercx, the widow of Hieronymus Cock, who retained the copper plates and continued printing in Cock's Antwerp workshop until she died in 1601. There is a record of her selling impressions from the plates to Suavius's former colleague, Christoffel Plantin, after Suavius had moved to Frankfurt. 

Alone of the prints, Christ is not placed in an architectural setting and again, unlike all the Apostles, who are viewed in various profile vantage points, he is rigorously frontal, formal and symmetrical, surrounded by a mandorla of clouds. The eyeballs are left blank, the effect of which, like the plinth on which he stands, is to suggest classical statuary. Above all, the print aims to emphasise Christ's divinity.

The Biblical inscription on the plinth in Hebrew translates as "This gate of the LORD into which the righteous shall enter" (Psalms, CXVIII 20).  Dr Victor Parker, University of Canterbury, adds the following: 'Knowledge of Hebrew in the West in the 16th century was still patchy even amongst the learned. The artist has badly drawn several of the letters and has made a number of other mistakes along the way. Particularly grievous is the missing down stroke on the last letter of the Tetragrammaton (the name of God -- YHWH).  Clearly the artist was copying from a text in front of him and was not really used to drawing Hebrew letters. The following century, Rembrandt's inscriptions are far more accurate'.

Art historian Sheri Shaneyfelt describes Suavius's series as 'generally more complex, both in iconography and technique' than earlier examples such as that by Lucas van Leyden, also in Te Papa's collection, and 'thereby the maturity of the engraving technique as well as the changing tastes of the viewer are demonstrated'.  Technically, Suavius juxtaposes different types and shapes of line to create varying illusions of tone and depth, and to develop contrast between light and shadow. Through the use of his diamond point tool, he creates 'images which hae a clear emphasis upon even, modulated tonality, overall effect of softness and a high degree of precision and intricate detail'. A 'refined technique was an important objective of Lambert Suavius, and one which he successfully reached in this particular series' (Shaneyfelt).

See:

Oxford Index, 'Lambert Suavius', http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100539310

Sheri Shaneyfelt, 'Lambert Suavius', in <em>Professional Printmaking in the Sixteenth-Century Netherlands</em>, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, Indiana, 1994, pp. 9-12.

Dr Mark Stocker    Curator, Historical International Art       February 2017