Biography

Dutch painter, architect, and designer, active in the southern Netherlands and throughout the Holy Roman Empire. He was sent, when young, to Amsterdam, where he became a scholar of Reyer Erritsz, under whom he continued five years. In 1549, he went to Antwerp. The latter part of his life was principally occupied in making designs of architectural and other subjects for print-sellers, particularly Hieronymus Cock. Though an artist of many talents, it was through his engravings that he most influenced his contemporaries. The distribution of his works by the publishers of Antwerp made him one of the leading and best-known exponents of Mannerist decoration and the instigator of a new urban vision in northern and central Europe.

He was the father of Paul Vredeman de Vries and Salomon Vredeman de Vries (1556-1604), grand-father of Pieter Vredeman de Vries (born 1587). He probably died in Antwerp.