Etudes Epistémè (Oct 2017)
Aesop’s Fables in Disguise: a Creative Interpretation of Gheeraerts’s Illustrations for De warachtighe fabulen der dieren in Two Early Publications by Johann Weichard Valvasor
Abstract
The emblematic book of fables De warachtighe fabulen der dieren, with etchings by Marcus Gheeraerts (Brugge, 1567), was translated into several languages and the illustrations were copied time and again. An original reinterpretation of Gheeraerts’s etchings has recently been discovered in two publications by Johann Weichard Valvasor (1641-1693), the great patron of the arts, who established the first printmaking workshop in the Duchy of Carniola. The engravings in the Dominicae Passionis Icones (1679) and Theatrum mortis humanae tripartitum (1682) produced in Valvasor’s workshop at Bogenšperk Castle are embellished by original decorative borders, designed by Valvasor’s master engraver Andreas Trost. Until recently the borders were considered to be of purely ornamental character, although among the skillfully rendered miniature plants and animals there are quite a number of beasts that form a distinctive narrative scene. Analysis of the animal scenes shows that many of them represent a characteristic episode from one of the popular Aesop’s fables. Most of them are modeled on Gheeraerts’s etchings for De warachtighe fabulen der dieren via their copies by Aegidius Sadeler II made for his Theatrum morum (Sadeler’s book was at Trost’s disposal in Valvasor’s library at Bogenšperk Castle). The article examines the strategies used for integrating Gheeraerts’s fables illustrations into the new format, thus revealing the inventiveness and virtuosity of Valvasor’s master engraver. It also tries to answer two questions of crucial importance: why did Trost choose Gheeraerts’s illustrations as his models and what is the actual function of the animal fable scenes in the new context?
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