Biography

Flemish draftsman, engraver, and publisher, part of a family of printmakers and publishers, active in the 16th-17th centuries.

He learned drawing and engraving first from his father, the map maker Gerard de Jode (c. 1509-1591), and later from Hendrik Goltzius. His engravings of Italian master paintings became a source for Karel van Mander. He travelled to Rome in 1590 where he made his engravings of Titian, Giulio Romano and Jacopo Bassano. In Rome he might have met his compatriot Jan Brueghel the Elder with whom he later collaborated.

He travelled back home and in 1599 he joined the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. He made engravings after Bartholomaus Spranger, Sebastiaen Vrancx, Otto van Veen, Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens. In 1631 he travelled to Paris.

He was the teacher of his son Pieter de Jode II and Nicolaes Rijckmans (born c. 1595).