Jakob Binck, an old German engraver

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

 and painter, was born at Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 between 1490 and 1504. From the earliest accounts of Bink, we must consider it probable that he was a pupil of Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

, but this is by no means certain, while his early residence in Italy throws a doubt upon the supposition. He is also said to have worked under Marc' Antonio

Marcantonio Raimondi

Marcantonio Raimondi, also simply Marcantonio, was an Italian engraver, known for being the first important printmaker whose body of work consists mainly of prints copying paintings. He is therefore a key figure in the rise of the reproductive print...

 in Rome. One of his largest plates is a rather feeble copy of the very popular 'Massacre of the Innocents' by Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

. Previous to the year 1546 he was appointed painter

Court painter

A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or noble family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Especially in the late Middle Ages, they were often given the office of valet de chambre...

 to King Christian III of Denmark

Christian III of Denmark

Christian III reigned as king of Denmark and Norway. He was the eldest son of King Frederick I and Anna of Brandenburg.-Childhood:...

, whose portrait and that of his wife Queen Dorothea

Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg

Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg , consort of Christian III from 1525 and Queen consort of Denmark and Norway. She was daughter of Duke Magnus I of Saxe-Lauenburg and Catherine, daughter of Henry IV, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

, by him, are said to be at Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. He was also employed by Prince Albrecht of Brandenburg, who sent him in 1549 to the Netherlands, to erect a monument to the late Princess. Bink now received a fixed annual salary from the above-named prince, and removed his wife and family to Königsberg

Königsberg

Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

, where, about twenty years after, he died, in 1568 or 1569.

Of his paintings none but portraits are known. In the Garderobe at Königsberg are those of 'Prince Albrecht' and his 'First Wife,' and his own portrait is in the Belvedere

Belvedere (palace)

The Belvedere is a historical building complex in Vienna, Austria, consisting of two Baroque palaces the Upper and Lower Belvedere, the Orangery, and the Palace Stables. The buildings are set in a Baroque park landscape in the 3rd district of the city, south-east of its centre. It houses the...

, Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. Bink's pictures are remarkable for correctness of drawing and general artistic taste. This artist holds a distinguished rank among the engravers denominated, on account of the small size of their prints, by the name of the 'Little Masters

Little Masters

The Little Masters , were a group of German printmakers who worked in the first half of the 16th century, primarily in engraving. They specialized in very small finely detailed prints, some no larger than a postage stamp...

.' His style is very neat, sometimes resembling the works of H. Aldegrever

Heinrich Aldegrever

Heinrich Aldegrever or Aldegraf was a German painter and engraver. He was one of the "Little Masters", the group of German artists making small old master prints in the generation after Dürer.-Biography:...

, but his plates evince less mastery in the execution. His drawing is correct, and there is an agreeable taste in the turn of his figures. There has existed considerable confusion respecting the marks of the artists of this period, particularly those whose names commence with a B. The works of this master are generally marked with the cipher annexed, the C meaning Coloniensis. Several other engravers used the initials I. B., one of whom, very skilful indeed, and possessed of much invention, is mistaken by Sandrart

Joachim von Sandrart

Joachim von Sandrart was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age.-Biography:Sandrart was born in Frankfurt, but the family originated from Mons...

 for Bink. The following are his principal prints:

• The Portrait of Jacob Bink, with a cap, a skull in his cloak, and a cup in his right hand.
• The Portrait of Lucas Gassel
  Lucas Gassel
  Lucas Gassel , was a Flemish Renaissance painter.-Biography:According to Karel van Mander he was a landscape painter greatly admired by Dominicus Lampsonius, who was also his friend....
  
  ; I. B. 1529. Inscribed Imago ab Jacob Binck ad vivum delineata.
• Portrait of Francis I
  Francis I of France
  Francis I was King of France from 1515 until his death. During his reign, huge cultural changes took place in France and he has been called France's original Renaissance monarch...
  
   ; Franciscus rex Franciae.
• Portrait of Claude, First Queen
  Claude of France
  Claude of France was a princess and queen consort of France and ruling Duchess of Brittany. She was the eldest daughter of Louis XII of France and Anne, Duchess of Brittany....
  
   of Francis I. 1528.
• Christiernus II
  Christian II of Denmark
  Christian II was King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden , during the Kalmar Union.-Background:...
  
  . Danorum Rex. 1525.
• Elisabeta Danorum Begina.
• Christian III, surrounded by nine shields of arms and six Cupids, is one of his most elaborate and excellent engravings. It is rare, and not in Bartsch
  Adam Bartsch
  Johann Adam Bernhard von Bartsch was an Austrian scholar and artist. His catalogue of Old master prints is the foundation of the Art History of printmaking, and he was himself a printmaker in engraving and etching....
  
  's catalogue.
• St. Jerome, with the Lion.
• Twenty, representing the Divinities; copied after Caralius, who engraved these plates after Il Rosso
  Rosso Fiorentino
  Giovanni Battista di Jacopo , known as Rosso Fiorentino , or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school.-Biography:...
  
  .
• Adam holding the branch of a tree.
• Eve, with a branch with two apples.
• Lot and his Daughters; circular; marked twice.
• David, with the head of Goliath. 1526.
• Judith, with the head of Holofernes.
• St. Michael vanquishing the Evil Spirit.
• The Virgin Mary adoring the Infant Jesus in the manger.
• Virgin sitting on a bank.
• Saints, various small prints, including SS. Anthony, the Virgin with Catharine and Barbary, Magdalene, George.
• The Beheading of St. John.
• The Soldier struggling with Death. A fine design.
• Many subjects from fable and allegory, including Cupid, Venus, Hercules and Nessus
  Nessus (mythology)
  In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
  
  , Pride, Fortune, Justice.
• The Massacre of the Innocents; copied after Marc' Antonio; very scarce; an inferior print.
• A Woman beating and driving away the Devil with her crutch. 1528.
• A Soldier and a young woman.
• A Peasant carrying a basket of eggs.
• A Peasant and woman dancing.
• A Vignette, four Cupids mounted on dolphins.
• A Vase, ornamented with the heads of two unicorns.

With about fifteen other ornamental trifles. His prints amount in number to 140, but many of them are copies from Dürer, Sebald Beham

Hans Sebald Beham

Hans Sebald Beham was a German printmaker who did his best work as an engraver, and was also a designer of woodcuts and a painter and miniaturist...

, and others. He is therefore inferior in originality to some other Little Masters, his contemporaries.

Reference

• Jacob Binck in the RKD
• Jacob Binck on Artnet
  Artnet
  artnet is an online service provider for the international art market with headquarters in New York, Berlin and Paris. Additionally, artnet has regional offices in China, the UK and Russia.- Business model :...