Lambert Suavius

real name: Lambert Zutman, circa 1510 Liège – between 1574 and 1576 Frankfurt a. M.

Lambert Suavius, an artistic celebrity of considerable versatility, was active as an architect, poet, painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was a member of the humanist circle in Liège that gathered around his brother-in-law, Lambert Lombard, under whom he studied. After undergoing further training in Italy, he worked first in Liège and, from the 1550s onwards, in Antwerp and Frankfurt. Although he produced a series of reproductive engravings after originals by his tutor, Lombard, Suavius also made engravings of his own invention. Suavius must have been quick to make a name for himself as an engraver, as none other than Vasari mentions the artist approvingly in his Vite.