Ysbrandt van Diemerbroeck. Line engraving after R. de Hooghe.

[Utrecht] : [Meinardus à Dreunen and Guilielmus à Walcheren], [1685]

1 print : engraving

Isbrandus de Diemerbroeck. Ultraiectinus. Medicinae et anatomes professor. Cerne virum, lector, Belgamque Machaona, per quem / Secto pandit homo corpore, quid sit homo. / Morborum en domitor, quem vivere Mors dolet una, / Vitaque laetatur se genuisse sibi. / L. vande Poll. J.V.D. et Professor. Romyn de Hooghe designavit ; Joannes Edeling sculpsit.

The engraving is attributed in the lettering to Jean Edelinck, but Weigert (loc. cit.), following Mariette, doubts the attribution, partly on the ground that Edelinck died five years before this print was published in 1685. However, owing to the war between France and the Dutch Republic, 1672-1678, there was a long delay between Diemerbroeck's death in 1674 and the eventual publication in 1685 of his Opera omnia including this portrait (Diemerbroeck, Opera omnia anatomica et medica, op. cit., dedication, "propter belli calamitatem, quod tunc quasi musae silerent, typographis non erat animus opus tanti ponderis & impensae suscipere"). It was eventually published by the sitter's son, Tieman van Diemerbroeck, who could have had the portrait engraved before or shortly after his father's death in 1674, but not published until later. The verses by L. van der Poll also assume that the sitter is still alive

Verses below the portrait are by Lucas van der Poll, professor of law at Utrecht University. Translation: "Look, reader, at this man, the Netherlandish Machaon, through whom mankind reveals with his dissected body what mankind is. Behold the vanquisher of diseases, of whom Death alone grieves that he is alive, and Life rejoices that she has begotten herself."

Roger-Armand Weigert, Inventaire du fonds français, graveurs du XVIIe siècle, tome IV, Bibliothèque nationale, Cabinet des estampes, Paris 1961, p. 79 no. 57 ("57. Pl. : [Van] Diemerbroeck (Isbrandus de). Opera omnia... Ultrajecti, apud Meinardum a Dieumen, et Guillelmum a Walcheren, 1685. In-fol. [Impr., Fol. T 25. 86]. 'Isbrandus de Diemerbroec ... [etc.]'. A mi-corps, de 3/4 à dr., dans un médaillon ovale. Au loin, église d'Utrecht (?). Fond rectang. Au bas, de part et d'autre d'une tablette figures allégoriques. Sur la tablette : 'Cerne vicium... [etc.]'. Vers le bas, au milieu : 'Romyn de Hooghe designavit'. A dr. : 'Joannes Edeling sculpsit'. H. 0m427 x L. 0m290. L'état décrit, 2 épr., … L'ex. des Imprimés, qui présente ce portrait doit être une rééd., car en 1685, Jean Edelinck était mort depuis cinq ans environ. D'autre part, le style et la signature de la gravure sont assez sensiblement éloignés des autres travaux de l'artiste. Souvent mentionnée parmi les travaux de Jean Edelinck, la pièce ne semble pas signalée par Mariette.")

R. Burgess, Portraits of doctors & scientists in the Wellcome Institute, London 1973, no. 813.1

Wellcome Collection 2513i