Portrait of Hendrick Goltzius

Muller, the son of an Amsterdam printmaker and publisher, worked for Goltzius in Haarlem around 1588-89. There he learned the virtuosic engraving technique of sinuous swelling and tapering lines that Goltzius had devised after he became an independent printmaker. When Goltzius departed for Italy in 1590, Muller returned to Amsterdam and began to make engravings after the designs of Mannerist painters like Bartholomeus Spranger, whose works had formerly been reproduced by Goltzius. In this life-size portrait of Goltzius Muller employs the same bold and expressive technique.

Various symbols surround the portrait. The torch at the upper right indicates that the portrait is posthumous, and the two trumpets signify the artist's fame. The feathers at the center refer to Goltzius's remarkable pen works, highly finished drawings made with quills on parchment and canvas. The gold that spills from the cornucopia is a pun on Goltzius's name. At the bottom center is the head of a phoenix. Together all of these emblems recall the epithet, a "phoenix with golden quills," that his biographer Karel van Mander applied to Goltzius.