Sunday, October 1, 2017

Engravings, Etchings, Woodcuts - 17th century

Caspar Hersbach
Celestial Globe with Comet below
1618
hand-colored engraving (broadside)
British Museum

from PORTENTS OF CIVIL WAR

The sun reveals the secrets of the sky;
And who dares give the source of light the lie?
The change of empires often he declares,
Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars.

He first the fate of Caesar did foretell,
And pitied Rome, when Rome in Caesar fell;
In iron clouds, conceal'd the public light;
And impious mortals fear'd eternal night.

Nor was the fact foretold by him alone:
Nature herself stood forth, and seconded the sun.
Earth, air, and seas, with prodigies were signed;
And birds obscene, and howling dogs, divined.

                 *                *               *    

Such peals of thunder never poured from high,
Nor forky lightnings flashed from such a sullen sky.
Red meteors ran across the ethereal space;
Stars disappeared, and comets took their place.

– from Virgil's Georgics, translated by John Dryden (1698)

Alain Manesson Mallet
Map of Socotra Island off the coast of Yemen
1683
hand-colored engraving (book illustration)
British Museum 

Philippus Velyn after Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
Jean Racine flanked by deities and crowned with laurel by goddess
1816
etching (book frontispiece)
British Museum

Anonymous English printmaker
Converte Angliam
ca. 1685
etching, engraving
British Museum 
(satirical anti-Catholic print)

Claude Mellan
Intellectus et Memoria
1625
engraving
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Claude Mellan
Letter D with Dolphins
ca. 1639-43
engraving
British Museum

Wolfgang Hieronymus von Bömmel
Lion and Hare composed of ornamental leaf-work
1698
engraving
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

"This engraving of a lion and a hare composed entirely of scrolling acanthus leaves is from a series of designs for gold ornament.  An ancient motif, the acanthus dominated European decorative arts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Nuremberg, where the suite was published, was a major manufacturing center for German luxury goods and art, including metalwork and printmaking.  Ornament prints featuring inventive designs were a source of inspiration for artisans working in various media."

– curator's notes from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jacques Blondeau after Giovanni Battista Manelli
Vision of St Teresa
before 1698
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Francesco Villamena
St Hilarion in the Desert
1613
engraving
British Museum

Aelbert Cuyp
Two Cows
before 1691
etching
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Ludolph Busing
The Procuress
before 1669
chiaroscuro woodcut
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Dirck de Bray
Geographer
ca. 1650-90
woodcut
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

after Andrea Camassei
Dispute of Athena and Poseidon over patronage of Athens
ca. 1620-1700
engraving
British Museum

"The dispute of Athena and Poseidon over the patronage of Athens, after Camassei, with in the right foreground Athena standing on a shore and creating the olive tree by striking the ground with her spear, and on the left Poseidon in his chariot brandishing his trident as his gift to the Athenian people, a horse, emerges from the sea; above them, Ares, Zeus and Hermes looking on."

– curator's notes from the British Museum

Frederick Bloemaert after Abraham Bloemaert
Boys climbing a tree
before 1669
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem