Romeyn de Hooghe was an important and prolific late Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 Baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

, painter, sculptor, engraver and caricaturist.

Biography

De Hooghe was born in Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

. He was skilled as an etcher, draughtsman

Drawing

Drawing is a form of visual art that makes use of any number of drawing instruments to mark a two-dimensional medium. Common instruments include graphite pencils, pen and ink, inked brushes, wax color pencils, crayons, charcoal, chalk, pastels, markers, styluses, and various metals .An artist who...

, painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, sculptor

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

 and medalist. He is best known for political caricatures of Louis XIV

Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV , known as Louis the Great or the Sun King , was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. His reign, from 1643 to his death in 1715, began at the age of four and lasted seventy-two years, three months, and eighteen days...

 and propagandistic

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 prints supporting William of Orange

William III of England

William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...

. During his career, de Hooghe produced over 3500 prints. He also illustrated books, and his illustration

Illustration

An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...

s can be found in some of the most important texts of his period. The Hieroglyphica of Merkbeelden der oude volkeren (1735) was a well known emblem book

Emblem book

Emblem books are a category of mainly didactic illustrated book printed in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries, typically containing a number of emblematic images with explanatory text....

 and sourcebook for classical mythology

Classical mythology

Classical mythology or Greco-Roman mythology is the cultural reception of myths from the ancient Greeks and Romans. Along with philosophy and political thought, mythology represents one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later Western culture.Classical mythology has provided...

 and its iconography

Iconography

Iconography is the branch of art history which studies the identification, description, and the interpretation of the content of images. The word iconography literally means "image writing", and comes from the Greek "image" and "to write". A secondary meaning is the painting of icons in the...

.

According to Houbraken he was particularly good at inventive arrangements of subjects in engravings. He was also a gifted painter and painted large panels for the rooms of the mayor's office in Enkhuizen and a room in the estate of Mattthijs van den Broeck in Dubbeldam. Houbraken disapproved of his dissolute lifestyle however, and felt that despite an enormous talent, as he grew older, he engraved shameful subjects that were a disgrace to the profession.

According to the RKD he became a member of the Confrerie Pictura

Confrerie Pictura

The Confrerie Pictura was a more or less academic club of artists founded in 1656 in The Hague, by local art painters, who were unsatisfied by the Guild of Saint Luke there.-History:The guild of St...

 in 1662 and again in 1683 in the Hague. He was engaged to Maria Lansman of Edam in 1673, and their child was baptized in the Nieuwezijds Kapel in Amsterdam in 1674. He is known for decorative borders on large-scale city maps. His pupils were Filibert Bouttats (1654-after 1731), Filibertus Bouttats (1635-1707), Frans Decker

Frans Decker

Frans Decker is a painter of whom but little is known, although his pictures possess great merit, and are to be met with in almost every collection. He is stated to have been born at Haarlem in 1684, and to have died at the same place in 1751, having been a pupil of Romeyn De Hooghe and of...

, François Harrewijn, Jacobus Harrewijn, Aernout Naghtegael, Laurens Scherm, and Adriaen Schoonebeek. De Hooghe died in Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

.