An engraving of Christophe Plantin (1514–89), printer and major publisher. A half-length portrait, standing at a desk in a loggia, with a compass open in his right hand. The poem at the bottom of this print is by Johannes Bochius (1555–1609), town clerk of Antwerp from 1585. This print is lettered across the top: "CHRISTOPHORVS PLANTINVS Architypographus Regius, / vixit annos LXXV. obijtque Antuerpiæ CIC.IC.LXXXIX"; in the lower right corner: "HGoltzius fecit"; along the bottom: "Plantinum tibi, spectator, proponimus, vt cum … / Reddita sunt studio sæcula docta tuo. // I. BOCHIVS.".

The print formed part of an album of portrait prints assembled by Cassiano dal Pozzo in Rome. Described in an early nineteenth-century inventory of prints in George III's library as German Litterati, the album was dismantled later in the nineteenth century and its contents sold during the early twentieth century, when only a few of Cassiano's foreign non-royal portrait prints were retained for the collection.

For more information see Mark McDonald, The Print Collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo. I: Ceremonies, Costumes, Portraits and Genre, 3 vols, Royal Collection Trust 2017, part of The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Catalogue Raisonné, cat. no. 1603.