Ludolph Büsinck
German, 1599 or 1602–1669
(after Georges Lallemand, French, 1580–1636)

The Flute Player, 1630
Chiaroscuro woodcut
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago; University Transfer from Max Epstein Archive, purchased 1952
1967.116.99
Signatures and inscriptions on Ludolph Büsinck’s works attest to his collaboration with the French artist Georges Lallemand, who was Nicolas Poussin’s teacher. A German painter and printer, Büsinck stimulated interest in chiaroscuro woodcuts in early seventeenth-century France. While living in Paris from 1623 to 1630, he made prints almost exclusively in this technique, usually working after drawings by Lallemand. The formal importance of the elaborate scrolling inscriptions in The Flute Player, placed prominently at the upper left, reflect the care artists took to claim credit for and guard their work.