Detail from plate 26 of the Omnium pene Europae... from 1577, from a copy kept in the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp.
Abraham de Bruyn (c. 1539, Antwerp – 1587, Cologne?)[1] was a Flemish engraver. He established himself at Cologne about the year 1577. He is ranked among the Little Masters, on account of his plates being usually very small. He engraved in the manner of Wierix, and worked entirely with the graver, in a neat and formal style, but his drawing is far from correct. It is believed that he worked also as a goldsmith. Among his portraits, and prints of small friezes of hunting, hawking, &c., which are esteemed for their neatness, may be mentioned:
16th century costumes of merchants from Brabant and Antwerp, 1577
Moses and the Burning Bush.
Four plates of the Evangelists. 1578.
Christ and the Samaritan Woman.
A Philosopher.
The Seven Planets. 1569.
The Five Senses.
Sixteenth-century Polish trooper
A set of one hundred plates, entitled 'Imperii ac Sacerdotii Ornatus. Diversarum item Gentium peculiaris Vestitus.' 1577–78. (His best work.) Reissued, with some additional plates, and entitled ' Omnium pene Europae, Asiae, Aphricae atque Americae Gentium Habitus.' 1581.
Seventy-six plates of Horsemen. 1575.
A set of small friezes of Hunting and Hawking. 1565.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Bryan, Michael (1886). "De Bruyn, Abraham". In Graves, Robert Edmund (ed.). Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers (A–K). Vol. I (3rd ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
