Jan de Bisschop

Jan de Bisschop, also known as Johannes Episcopius (1628–1671), was a lawyer, who became a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver. De Bisschop was born in Amsterdam and comes from a wealthy family. He was originally a lawyer at the court of Holland. On 12 March 1648 he was registered as a lawyer in Leiden. In 1652 he started a practice in The Hague. In 1653 he married Anna van Baerle, a daughter of the Amsterdam professor Caspar Barlaeus.

For De Bisschop, art was mainly for entertainment and not a form of livelihood. He learned drawing in Amsterdam from Bartholomeus Breenbergh in the period 1644 to 1648. Despite his amateur status, Jan de Bisschop had a great influence on painting. He was one of the founders of the artists’ society Confrerie Pictura in The Hague.

According to the RKD he learned to draw from Bartholomeus Breenbergh, and he influenced in his turn Jacob van der Ulft. Both Ulft and Bisschop were born into good families and were examples of painters who practised art more for pleasure than for a living. Bisschop was a founding member of the Confrerie Pictura and produced two books in the 1670s meant as instructional material for young artists. These were based on his own copies from classical artists, but also copies from the Rome-traveller, Pieter Donker. One was 112 prints that was produced in the years 1668-1669 as the Signorum Veterum Icones (Dutch title: Afbeeldingen van antieke beelden), and the other was printed in 1671 as Paradigmata Graphices variorum Artificum (Dutch title: Voor-beelden der Teken-Konst van verscheyde Meesters).

According to Houbraken he was a lawyer for the Dutch court, and did a great service to the arts with his instructional drawings copied from the artists Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, Annibale Carracci (Karats), Paolo Veronese, Rubens, and Anthony van Dyck.

The artist has probably never been to Italy. He was mainly inspired by other artists. The Bishop imitated Breenbergh’s Italianate style by using a gold-brown ink. The ink color bishop is named after him. As an artist he influenced Jacob van der Ulft. He wrote two works with instructions for young painters, with copies of classical artists that he and Pieter Donker had made:

Signorum Veterum Icones (Pictures of Ancient Statues), with 112 engravings made in the period 1668 – 1669
Paradigmata Graphices variorum Artificum (Examples of the Drawing Art of Various Masters), made in 1671

De Bisschop in circles with intellectual friends, such as Constantijn Huygens Jr. On the occasion of the death of Jan de Bisschop on November 6, 1671, Huygens wrote the following epitaph:

Here light the teeckenaer, daer s’ all nevens saten
Who thirst after him, like less prelates.
That’s that we seg with right and without over-favor,
The art of bishop maeckt’ him bishop of the art