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Perret, Pedro
[Pieter] (b Antwerp, 1555; d Madrid, c. 1625). Flemish engraver, active in Spain. The son of a playing-card maker who was a member of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke from 1545, he trained first in the workshops of Marten de Vos and then in 1574 with Gerard de Jode. He had close connections with the Bruegel family. Part of his apprenticeship was with Cornelis Cort in Rome between 1580 and 1583. At the end of this period he arrived at the Spanish court to engrave the highly detailed plates, based on drawings by Juan de Herrera, for the Sumario y breve declaración de los diseños y estampas de la fábrica de San Lorenzo el Real del Escorial (Madrid, 1589). Perret was also active in Antwerp with works dated 1591 and in 1594 was received as a master engraver into the Guild of St Luke. The quality of his work appealed to Philip II and in 1595 he was nominated to the post of Royal Engraver, a position that was recognized in 1595 and ratified in 1622. During this period he was active in Madrid, with a stay in Portugal, where he worked for the Portuguese printing houses, at the beginning of the 17th century. He worked intensively on the illustration of books, producing title-pages, portraits and separate engravings, such as the portrait of Philip II (1596) that also appeared in Ilustraciones genealógicas de los Catholicos Reyes de España by E. de Garibay. Perret’s skill as a portrait artist can also be seen in his engraving of Mateo Alemán in that author’s Guzmán de Alfarache (Madrid, 1599). He must have died c. 1625, for from that date onwards works have been reliably attributed to his son and pupil, Pedro Perete (d Madrid, 8 April 1639). The son shared the same craft and probably chose the Castilian form of his name to distinguish himself from his father. His artistic collaboration with the engraver Pedro de Villafranca suggests a link in the work of both men with Pedro Perret the elder.
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