Virgil Solis
Encyclopedia
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
1514 – 1 August 1562), a member of a prolific family of artists, was a German draughtsman and printmaker in engraving
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...
, etching
Etching
Etching is the process of using strong acid or mordant to cut into the unprotected parts of a metal surface to create a design in intaglio in the metal...
and woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
who worked in Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
. His prints were sold separately or formed the illustrations of books; many prints signed by him are probably by assistants. After his death his widow married his assistant and continued the workshop into the early seventeenth century.
His woodcuts illustrating Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
were especially influential, though partly borrowing from earlier illustrations by the French artist Bernard Salomon. They were reprinted and copied in many different editions, in Latin and translations into various languages; the Ovid from which the illustration at left has been taken was printed at Frankfort in 1581. He published in armorial
Wappenbüchlein
A Wappenbüchlein was published by Virgil Solis in 1555, printed in Nuremberg.The title page introduces the work as follows:"in honour of his imperial and royal majesty, and also his Holiness the pope, including some of the most noble foreign kingdoms, the prince-electors, princes and common...
of the Holy Roman Empire in 1555.
Jost Amman
Jost Amman
Jost Amman was a Swiss artist, celebrated chiefly for his woodcuts, done mainly for book illustrations....
was an assistant of Solis' before starting his own workshop.