Leading ladies at printing press and publishing house Plantin-Moretus
The house and the family owned company survived for three hundred years. This was largely the work of a group of strong, emancipated women. Their names are Martina Plantin (1550–1616), Anna Goos (1627–1691), Anna-Maria de Neuf (1654–1714) and Maria-Theresia Borrekens (1728–1797). They managed the company for long periods of time, guaranteeing its continuity.
Martina Plantin
Martina Plantin (1550–1616) was the second daughter of Christophe Plantin and Jeanne Rivière. As the wife of Jan I Moretus, it was from her that the printing dynasty was descended, starting with her sons Balthasar I and Jan II, who jointly inherited the bookshop and print shop.
Martina and her sisters were not brought up for a life of obscurity by their parents: Plantin made sure that his daughters could read and write (some of them even in Latin and Hebrew). Later they were involved in the family’s commercial activities to the best of their ability. Thus Martina was already running her parents’ lace shop at the age of seventeen. Even after her marriage she remained active in this business.
Martina is here depicted by Rubens in dark clothing from the 16th century. The high ruff, distinctive shoulder-knots, typical incisions in the cloth, heavy gold chain and fine lace show a formidable businesswoman from the wealthy bourgeoisie.
Anna Goos
Coming from a wealthy patrician family, at around the age of eighteen Anna Goos (1627–1691) married Balthasar II Moretus, twelve years her senior. Especially after the death of her husband in 1673, she proved to have a strong character and considerable entrepreneurial ability.
She took charge of the company, steered it through a payment crisis and seamlessly continued the system of bookkeeping for the family’s assets. She lived until her death in the ‘Golden Compass’, where she reverently hung portraits in the most appropriate rooms.
Her clothing and coiffure, with curls reaching to the shoulder, are perfectly in keeping with contemporary fashion. Her Antwerp lace collar is beautiful and very costly. At the bottom of the portrait, we can just see her expansive sleeves made of fine material. Her pearl necklace was a wedding gift from her husband, while the bow-shaped jewel on her chest was probably inherited from her mother: such valuables could be given by women to their daughters as a form of financial security.
Maria-Theresia Borrekens
Maria-Theresia Borrekens (1728–1797) was married to Franciscus Joannes Moretus, son of Joannes Jacobus and Theresia Mechtildis Schilders. The daughter of a knight, Engelbert Borrekens, she herself came from a rich and noble family.
After the death of her husband at a relatively young age, Maria-Theresia developed into a spirited business leader with an obstinate character. Despite the oath she had sworn to leave the Officina to her children ‘met luyster’ (‘in glorious condition’), due to external circumstances she failed to reverse the downturn in the printing business that had already started.
The portrait by Philippe Joseph Tassaert shows something of this eccentric personality: Maria-Theresia is dressed in 17th-century — and hence completely antiquated — costume, with an exotic shawl draped around her shoulders and chest. Such is her aristocratic self-possession that there is no longer any need for that extreme fashion-consciousness that was still very much in evidence in her parents-in-law.
