Sir Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 — May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.

Peter Paul Rubens “St. Peter Preaching” Etching AFTER the artist Peter Paul Rubens work in oil and etched by the leading etcher of the period William Unger on antique wove paper.

Plate mark measures 5.50 by 8 (etched work) inches approximate.

William Unger The long-lived William Unger is important not only as an etcher but as an influential scholar and teacher. Serving as professor of graphic arts at the Vienna Academy he taught etching techniques to many of the finest Austrian, German and French artists of the early twentieth century. He was also a founder of Zeitschrift fur Bildendekunst (1866), an important journal which promoted etching, engraving and lithography. Unger’s autobiography, Aus meinen leben, was published in Vienna in 1928.


William Unger began his formal art studies in 1854 as a student of Joseph Keller, in Dusseldorf. He then finished his studies at the Academy in Leipzig. During his successful career as an etcher Unger received numerous awards including medals from expositions in Paris (1878), Vienna (1888) and Berlin (1891). Unger became most famous for his etchings after the paintings of both old masters and contemporary artists, and these reproductive works occupied most of his career.

Art (paintings, prints, frames)