Bry, Theodorus de

(1528 - 1598)

Theodorus de Bry (1528-1598), German engraver and publisher, born at Liege.

In the earlier years of his career be worked at Strasbourg. Later he established an engraving and publishing business at Frankfurt-on-Main, and also visited London in or before 1587. Here he became acquainted with the geographer Richard Hakluyt, with whose assistance he collected materials for a finely illustrated collection of voyages and travels, Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Orientalem et Indiam Occidentalem (25 parts, 1590-1634).

Among other works he engraved a set of twelve plates illustrating the Procession of the Knights of the Garter in 1576, and a set of thirty-four plates illustrating the Procession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney; plates for Thomas Harriot's Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (Frankfurt, 1595); the plates for the first four volumes of J. J. Boissard's Romanae Urbis Topogrephia et Antiquitates (1597-1598), and a series of portraits entitled Icones Virorum Illustrium (1597-1599). De Bry died at Frankfurt on the 27th of March 1598. He had been assisted by his eldest son Johannes Theodorus de Bry (1561-1623), who after his father's death carried on the Collectiones and the illustration of Boissard's work, and also added to the Icones. His brother Johannes Israel de Bry (d. 1611) collaborated with him.