Virgil Solis

Virgil Solis (c. 1514 – Nuremberg, 1562) was a German Renaissance engraver and probably the most prolific printmaker of his time in what is now Germany. His importance lies largely in the workshop he ran, whose assistants produced more than a thousand plates, so his name functions as much as a mark of production as a signature of a single hand.

Very little is known about his origins and training. A portrait engraved by Balthasar Jenichen in the year of Solis's death places his birth around 1514, and his entry into printmaking is dated to about 1540. His decorative style suited the Renaissance fashionable in Central Europe, which blended motifs and ornament of Italian origin with a taste for dense, crowded compositions typical of the German tradition. He drew on Dürer, Sebald Beham and various Italian and French artists. Some critics read this eclecticism as a commercial strategy rather than a lack of originality.

Almost half of his output consists of ornamental details: compositions of foliage and architecture, garlands, emblems and coats of arms. These designs were reused as models by illustrators, cabinetmakers and metalworkers inlaying damascene work. Some series, such as the Nine Worthies, show tiny images framed by elaborate borders. In publishing he produced illustrations for a Lutheran Bible and for editions of Ovid, whose woodcuts were widely reprinted and copied.

His monogram, the initials "V S" joined together, appears on many plates, but it does not guarantee authorship, since the workshop used it as a mark of origin. His earliest series are thought to be largely his own work, while in his last years the assistants probably did most of the labour, which accounts for the uneven quality of the output. He died in Nuremberg in 1562, and his workshop passed to the engraver Balthasar Jenichen, who married his widow.