A printmaker of genius, Hendrik Goltzius won his reputation for the elegance of the burin work he used in hundreds of engravings to envelop the human figure in a supple interlace of curbing lines. His rare woodblock prints possess the sturdy grace of this little woodcut, with its jaunty fisherman casting a line in to the furious torrent below. Landscape with a Waterfall is one of a set of four compact views, each of which echoes on a small scale the sweeping grandeur of Titian's large woodcut designs published in Venice in the early decades of the sixteenth century. Goltzius first issued each of the four miniature landscapes as nocturnes, printing the outline block by itself in black on blue paper, then adding white highlights by hand with a brush to suggest moonlight. Later, in imitation of Italian chiaroscuro woodcuts, he added color blocks for the background, printing them in warm tones of ocher and green on creamy paper to obtain the sunnier effect seen here. John Ittmann, from Philadelphia Museum of Art: Handbook of the Collections (1995), p. 218.