He is reputed to have worked at Venice in the studio of
Tintoretto as an assistant in the painting of landscapes. In
1558 he returned to Antwerp, where he joined the artists’
guild and in 1572 became its dean. Having Lutheran sym-
pathies, de Vos became involved with the liberal, reformist
circle of the famous geographer Abraham ORTELIUS. These
connections did not prove incompatible with his work as
a painter of altarpieces, which he produced to replace
those which had been destroyed by iconoclastic riots. De
Vos also designed illustrations for Christopher PLANTIN
and, in 1594, collaborated with Ambrosius Francken on
the decorations for the triumphal entry of Archduke
Ernest of Austria. As a painter of historical, religious, and
mythological scenes, de Vos continued the style of Frans
Floris, somewhat modified by a coloristic sense derived
from his Venetian experiences.
Vredeman de Vries, Hans (1527–c. 1604) Netherlands
architect and designer
Born at Leeuwarden, Friesland, Vredeman de Vries was a
student of Cornelis FLORIS, whose style he plagiarized, pri-
marily in a long series of variations upon the design of
Antwerp town hall. Several of these variants are repro-
duced, together with numerous other architectural fan-
tasies, in his Varia architecturae formae (1601). Vredeman
de Vries does not appear to have been an architect in the
generally accepted sense, in that no known buildings can
be securely attributed to him. However, his journeys
through the Netherlands and Germany and his books of
prints popularized his designs, reflections of which may
be seen in the guildhalls of Antwerp and the butchers’ hall
of Namur. A seminal, rather than an original figure, Vre-
deman de Vries’s influence may be traced well into the
17th century.
Vriendt, Cornelis de See FLORIS, CORNELISVriendt, Frans de See FLORIS, FRANSVries, Adriaen de (1546–1626) Dutch sculptor
Adriaen de Vries was born in The Hague and became a
pupil of GIAMBOLOGNAin Florence. His first major com-
missions were the Mercury fountain and the Hercules
fountain, completed respectively in 1599 and 1602, for
Augsburg. Although de Vries designed both works, he did
so in Rome; the actual casting and finishing was done,
from his models, by other sculptors in Augsburg. As early
as 1593 de Vries was already executing commissions for
Emperor RUDOLF II, including the famous Abduction of
Psyche by Mercury in Paris. In 1601 he moved to Prague,
where he worked mainly for the emperor on portrait busts
and allegorical reliefs, such as Rudolf II Bringing the Arts
and Sciences into Bohemia (1609; Windsor Castle, Eng-
land). After the emperor’s death in 1612 and the removal
of the imperial court to Vienna, de Vries widened his cir-
cle of patrons. For Count Ernst of Schaumburg he ex-
ecuted the font in Bückeburg parish church and the
count’s tomb in Stadthagen, as well as a pair of bronze
groups, since lost, for the bridge leading to Bückeburg cas-
tle. All of this work was designed and cast in Prague, being
subsequently transported to north Germany by road. De
Vries collaborated with Hans von AACHENand Bartholo-
mäns SPRANGERand was influenced by artists as diverse as
Raphael and Dürer, but his principal model remained Gi-
ambologna. Adriaen de Vries was the last great northern
mannerist sculptor and a leading light in the international
“hothouse” culture that briefly and spectacularly flour-
ished in imperial Prague at the turn of the 16th and 17th
centuries.44998 8 VVrreeddeemmaann ddee VVrriieess,, HHaannss