Six of the book reviews may be of interest to CODART members for their material relating to Dutch and Flemish artists and the wider activities of the region.
A review of Christopher Heuer’s Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of the Image details the European interest in the polar north between 1500 and 1650. Mention is made of the extraordinary discovery in 1871 of a stock of Netherlandish prints, preserved in the permafrost, in the lost Dutch settlement of Nova Zembla in Northern Siberia. Jan Huygen van Linschoten’s voyages to Lapland in 1594 and 1595 are also mentioned, where he observed an indigenous shrine erected by the Nenets, parts of which he later included in his illustrations for his Voyasie to the Arctic, first published in 1601.
A review of Sophie Raux’s Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th-17th centuries presents a wider understanding of the activities of prominent Dutch and Flemish artists in relation to the emergence and development of the lottery in the Netherlands. Paintings by Michiel Coxie and Frans Floris featured among the top prizes and lottery posters were frequently designed by the likes of Maarten van Heemskerck, Pieter Pourbus, Isaac Claesz. van Swanenburgh, Claes Jansz. Visscher and Jan Luyken.
The exhibition catalogue Grotesques: Fantasy Portrayed, here reviewed by Femke Speelberg, explores grotesque imagery through works on paper in the collection of the Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp. Most of these are from the sixteenth century and originate from the Southern Netherlands. Of particular interest to print scholars, Speelberg highlights the chapter on the dissemination of grotesque prints through the Plantin press as it discusses some of the international business transactions of Christophe Plantin, largely pieced together from historical archive material.
Jamie Gabbarelli’s review of The Renaissance of Etching summarizes the development of the etching technique in Europe up to the mid-sixteenth century. His overview mentions the relatively small output of etchings by Lucas van Leyden and Jan Gossart compared to other Netherlandish artists like Frans Crabbe van Espleghem, Nicolaas Hogenberg and Jan Corneslisz. Vermeyen. The review also illustrates the importance of print publishers like Hieronymus Cock and Bartholomeus de Momper in popularizing the technique.
Edward Wouk’s monograph Frans Floris (1519/20–70): Imagining a Northern Renaissance is the subject of Séverine Lepape’s review. As Lepape notes, the book is not exclusively dedicated to printmaking but its importance in Floris’ career is deeply acknowledged, especially from his collaboration with talented printmakers and publishers. Her review discusses these links in detail, from the use of prints to spread knowledge of his ambitious cycles of works to his attempts at elevating Flemish printmaking to the level of Italian prints.
Finally, Jaco Rutgers’s review of Hans Jakob Meier’s Die Kunst der Interpretation: Rubens und die Druckgraphik discusses this in-depth study of Peter Paul Rubens’ printmaking activities. It features the discovery by the book’s author of a hand-coloured copy of Theodoor van Thulden’s Pompa Introitus Ferdinandi (1641), printed on vellum, in the collection of the Österreichisches Theatermuseum in Vienna.
Contents
An Unpublished Proof of the Arch of Honour of Maximilian I by Nancy Bialler and Freyda Spira
Pietro Paolo Drei’s Flower Mosaics Revealed in Print by Erin Giffin
Ludovico Mirri’s Vestigia and Publishing in Eighteenth-Century Rome by Francesca Guglielmini
The Marshall Family’s Print Publishing Business by David Stoker
Notes
The Renaissance Arctic (Into the White: The Renaissance Arctic and the End of the Image) by Jean Michel Massing
Lotteries, Art Markets, and Visual Culture in the Low Countries, 15th-17th centuries by Meredith M. Hale
Going Beyond the Goose (The Cultural Legacy of the Royal Game of the Goose: 400 years of Printed Board Games) by Naomi Lebens
The Lost Library of John V, King of Portugal by Antony Griffiths
Anton Maria Zanetti II and Limited Editions in Venice c. 1734 by Domenico Pino
The Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s Enfer (L’Enfer de la Bibliothèque: Éros au secret) by James Grantham Turner
Grotesques: Fantasy Portrayed by Femke Speelberg
Gabriel Belot (1882–1962) by Martin Hopkinson
American Prints at the Getty (True Grit: American Prints from 1900 to 1950) by Judith Brodie
Asger Jorn (1914–73) (Errations in Wood, Copper and Stone. Asger Jorn’s Prints) by Jonas Storsve
KP Brehmer (1938–97) (KP Brehmer Art Propaganda) by David Beech
Nancy Spero: Acts of Rebellion by Paul Coldwell
Publications Received
Catalogue and Book Reviews
Etchings of the Renaissance (The Renaissance of Etching) by Jamie Gabbarelli
Frans Floris (1519/20–70): Imagining a Northern Renaissance by Séverine Lepape
Rubens’s Printmaking Enterprise (Die Kunst der Interpretation: Rubens und die Druckgraphik) by Jaco Rutgers
In Search of Anton Maria Zanetti the Elder (La vita come opera d’arte: Anton Maria Zanetti e le sue collezioni) by Antoinette Friedenthal
Bits and Pieces: 400 Years of Collage by Susan Tallman
About Print Quarterly
Print Quarterly is the leading international journal dedicated to the art of the print from its origins to the present. It is peer-reviewed. The Journal publishes recent scholarship on a wide range of topics, including printmakers, iconography, social and cultural history, popular culture, print collecting, book illustration, decorative prints, and techniques such as engraving, etching, woodcutting, lithography and digital printmaking. For subscriptions see www.printquarterly.com