page_title: Michiel Sweerts
section_title: Prints
hierarchical_section_title: Michiel Sweerts / Work / Prints
context_page_description: Michiel Sweerts or Michael Sweerts was a Flemish painter and printmaker of the Baroque period, who is known for his allegorical and genre paintings, portraits and tronies. The artist led an itinerant life and worked in Rome, Brussels, Amsterdam, Persia and India.
  While in Rome Sweerts became linked to the group of Dutch and Flemish painters of low-life scenes known as the Bamboccianti. Sweerts' contributions to the Bamboccianti genre display generally greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than the other artists working in this manner. While he was successful during his lifetime, Sweerts and his work fell into oblivion until he was rediscovered in the 20th century as one of the most intriguing and enigmatic artists of his time.
context_section_description: Sweerts etched a small number of plates, 21 in total.  These were issued in small editions making his prints exceptionally rare. He engraved a series of 13 plates with a Latin title, Diversae facies in usum iuvenum et aliorum ('Various faces for use by the young and others'), which served as drawing models for his academy students. For this reason a full set of the prints in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum were squared up in pencil to facilitate copying. The set was published in Brussels in 1656, the same year that Sweerts established a drawing academy in the city.
caption: Portrait of Jan van den Enden
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