Schelte a Bolswert or '''Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert''' (c. 1586 – 1659) was a Frisian engraver who worked most of his career in Antwerp where he was one of the lead engravers in Rubens' workshop. He is known for his reproductive works after Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.

Life

He was born in the town of Bolswert in Friesland around 1586 as the son of Adam Uytema. Both he and his older brother, Boetius à Bolswert left in 1609 their hometown for Amsterdam where the older brother worked as an engraver for the print publisher Michiel Colyn. The younger brother studied printmaking with his brother and produced his first known work in 1612. By 1617 the brothers were active in Antwerp as employees of the Plantin Press. Boetius was admitted as a freemaster in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1621. He and Adam received a permit (a so-called 'privilege') to engrave, print and sell engravings in Antwerp. Adam became freemaster in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in the guild year 1625-1626. He never acquired Antwerp poorterschap (citizenship). Schelte lived in with the Lauwers family of printers on the Lombardenvest. For the last five years of his life Boetius worked exclusively on engravings after Rubens. Following his death in 1633, Schelte was employed by Rubens in his place. He worked closely with the painter, who sometimes retouched his proofs. He continued to engrave his works after Rubens' death in 1640. He died in Antwerp and was buried on 22 December 1659 in the choir of Antwerp Cathedral.

Work

Bolswert's plates were worked entirely with the graver, and he does not seem to have made any use of the drypoint. Basan said of his work:"The freedom which this excellent artist handled the graver, the picturesque roughness of etching, which he could imitate without any other assisting instrument, and the ability he possessed of distinguishing the different masses of colours, have always been admired by the conoisseurs'." Joseph Strutt, after quoting this passage, adds that Bolswert "drew excellently, and without any manner of his own; for his prints are the exact transcripts of the pictures he engraved from". His plates are generally signed with his name.

Principal prints

Various subjects, mostly after his own designs

Various subjects, after different Flemish masters

Portraits, etc., after Van Dyck

Subjects after Rubens

Landscapes and hunting scenes