Theodor de Bry

Theodor de Bry (1528–1598) was a Flemish designer, engraver, printmaker, and publisher. He was born in the city of Liège, but around 1570 he fled to Strasbourg to escape religious persection at the hands of Spanish Catholics. Around 1586 he moved again, to England, where he was exposed to stories and artistic depictions of European explorations of the New World.

In 1589, he moved to Frankfurt, Germany, to join his family. Assisted by his sons, he began to publish numerous volumes of literature about New World exploration, illustrated with his own engravings. The first of these, published in 1590, was a new edition of Thomas Hariot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. De Bry based the book's illustrations on the watercolor paintings of colonist John White. These engravings provided Europeans with some of their earliest notions of what the New World looked like.

De Bry continued publishing until his death in 1598.