Westerweel 1997

Westerwell, Bart. Anglo-Dutch Relations in the Field of the Emblem. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill, 1997.

Peter Daly, "The Place of the English Emblem Book in the Context of Continental Emblem Book Production to the Year 1700" (1-34)

difficulty of determining whether an emblem book is “English” — often composed of parts from so many different countries

most emblem books can be divided into three groups: 1) emblem books associated with three-part form of Andrea Alciato; 2) expanded forms of this; 3) emblematically illustrated works such as meditations, e.g. Drexel; 4) theoretical and often unillustrated discussions of emblem and impress

from a broader view than Rosemary Freeman’s, Daly argues for 60 emblem works published in ~123 printings to the year 1700, and some 28 manuscripts (6)

“a useful and didactic genre such as the emblem was often regarded by earlier critics as a literary ‘by-way’, or a handmaiden to high literature” (7)

long tradition of tournament impresa in England

first English emblem book (~1565) is manuscript collection by Thomas Palmer, based on Continental printed works (8)

first discussion of emblem is in John Bossewell’s Workes of Armorie (1572)

earliest printed English emblematic book: English translation of Van der Noot’s A Theater for Worldlings (1586)

four english emblem books were published in the Netherlands; more important is use of Dutch plates for English book production — at least 16 works contain illustrations printed from or copied from Dutch plates, including Whitney (1586), P.S.’s translation of Paradin (1591), VAenius’s Armorum emblematic (1608), Jenner’s Soules solace (1626) with an occasional Rollenhagen design, polyglot ed of Cats’ Proteus (1627), Hawkins The Devout Heart (1634) incorporating Wierix heart emblems, Quarles, Harvey’s Schola cords (1647), Halls’ Emblems with elegant figures (1658) with plates copied from Michael Hoyer’s Flammulae amoris, the anonymous Emblems Devine (1673), Latin ed of Hugo’s Pia desideria (1677), Ayres’ Emblems of Love (1683) with copies from Fons amoris, Burton’s pirated version of With in Delights for the Ingenious (1684), De la Feuille’s polyglot Devises )1691) and Pallavicinis Devises (1696)

unusual instance: Robert Whitehall illustrated Exastikon hieron sive iconum (Oxford, 1677) with 258 unsigned copperplate engravings by Matthaeus Merian for a Bible History (173 from OT, 85 from NT), executed in 1627 and used in a German Bible printed in Strasburg in 1630; only 12 copies of Whitehall’s book were printed (10)

importance of Drexel (13)

• De aeternitate considerationes, appeared in English as The Considerations of Dexelius upon Eternitie (1632), containing 9 engravings in the 2nd and subsequent editions; 16 English editions up to 1700
• English edition of The Christian Zodiack appeared in 1633, unillustrated, followed in 1643 by a second edition with 12 engravings
• The School of Patiens (1640), three engravings
• The Forerunner of Eternitie (1642), three engravings
• The Hive of Devotion (1647), 12 engravings
• The Considerations of Drexelius upon Death (1699), three engravings

Dutch illustrations were “more influential than Dutch printers” (18)

Bibliography of emblem books at end

Karl Josef Höltgen, "Francis Quarles and the Low Countries" (123-148)

Quarles's emblem books "survived as a devotional work, even when the emblem tradition itself had declined" (123)

"Modelling his Emblemes on these Jesuit books and some others of a similar provenance, Quarles established in Protestant England the dominant form of the Catholic Baroque emblem representing the encounter of Amor Divinus or Divine Love and the Soul." (131)

dissatisfying focus in criticism on denominations, Protestant vs Catholic

"Quarles's historical achievement can be explained with reference to five essential conditions: 1) a general change in artistic taste in ENgland about the 1620s known as the Jacobean revival of art; 2) Quarles's tendency in his earlier works to move towards meditative and epigrammatic forms; 3) the presence of an efficient mediator and promoter of the Counter-Reformation emblematic convention in the person fo the poet Edward Benlowes, his friend and Maecenas; 4) the truly Christian, meditative and non-sectarian character of the two Jesuit emblem books; 5) their allegorical strategy which dematerializes the pictures, exhibits types, nto images of divine persons, avoids the danger of idolatrous abuse and aims at spiritual truth behind the pictures." (132)