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Bloemaert's hermits in the desert in the original bookform - presentation copy given by Heribert Rosweyde

BLOEMAERT, Abraham.
Sylva anachoretica Aegypti et Palaestinae. Figuris aeneis et brevibus vitarum elogiis expressa. Abrahamo Blommaert inventore. Boetio a Bolswert sculptore.

With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25.

With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25.

With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25.

With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25.

With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25.



Antwerp, Henrick Aertsens, for the author, 1619. 4to. Contemporary full vellum with two blind fillets along the edges, 4 raised bands, spine lettered in ink. With 2 engraved frontispieces with the title 'Sacra eremus ascetarum' with a citation from Paul, Hebr. 11:37-8, resp. 'Sacra eremus ascetriarum' with a citation from Isaia: 35 (Roethlisberger, pl.63 and 291). Two series of 25 magnificent engravings by Boethius à Bolswert after the designs by Abraham Blommaert (140 x 92 mm), numbered 1-25 and 1-25. (2), 52 lvs.

First edition in book form of this magnificent series of engravings of the early Christian male and female hermits or anchorites in the Egyptian and Palestinian desert. This masterful and dense series was Abraham Bloemaert's most widely print set, but until recently it has hardly received any attention. Yet the set is his finest group of intensely expressive figures. Most saints are absorbed in prayer or meditation. The religious background for this series is the Catholic devotion for thr early Christian Church and, consequently, a fervor for secluded hermit life, desert anchorets, and early cenobic communities.plates were engraved some years earlier, in ca. 1612 by Boëtius Adam à Bolswert (Bolsward 1580 - 1633 Antwerp) who was a pupil of Abraham Bloemaert and who worked since 1620 in Antwerp, after the drawings by the famous mannerist painter and designer Abraham Blommaert, or Bloemaert (Dordrecht 1564 - 1651 Utrecht) who worked in Amsterdam from 1592 on, and later in Utrecht.second edition of the book appeared in '1612', but in fact somewhat later than 1619. It is a partial rearrangement of the original set, which was issued in 1619 as a book (our copy). By contrast with the prevailing literature, our 1619-edition is termed by Roethlisberger the original edition. At the same time the series was also issued in Dutch ('t Bosch der eremyten en eremytinnen ..., Antwerp, Paets, 1619) and in French (La forest des hermites et hermitesses ..., Antwerp, Verdussen, 1619).circumstances leading to Bloemaert's prints are not known, but there can be little doubt that the project emanated from the Jesuit circle of Heribert Rosweijde in Antwerp and thus parallels the beginnings of the compilation of the well-known Acta sanctorum by the Bollandists, whose true initiator Rosweijde was. Heribert Rosweijde (Utrecht 1569-Antwerp 1629), a contemporary of Bloemaert, joined the Jesuit order at the age of twenty, becoming rector of the Jesuit College at Antwerp. His major work is the Vitae patrum (Antwerp, Off. Plantiniana, 1615) with its translation in Dutch ('t Vaders boeck; Antwerp 1617), containing biographies of most of the hermits of the early Christian Church.  A compilation by Jan van Gorcum of this work appeared in 1619 in Antwerp.

Bloemaert's book consists of the printed title, a citation of Jerome's first letter to Heliodorus, De laude Eremi (f. (1)v- (2)r; then follows a citation of Basilius (f. (2)v, and the 25 anchorets and 25 anchoresses, both sections with an engraved title page. The three leaves of text apparently are omitted here as in the later '1612' edition. The images are printed on the recto's, facing a page of text compiled by the Jesuit Joannes Ryser of Antwerp (1573-1650), on the basis of various sources including the Vitae patrum by Heribert Rosweyde, Jerome, Rufinus, Ephraem, Basil, etc. Each print of the book bears thus on the verso a portion of the text for the following image.. But there exist series with empty verso's, not issued in book form. These texts give the life of the saint, the feast day and references to sources.

The likely scenario of the making of this series is as follows. First: the project started a couple of years before 1612 with a title and 23 anchorets; perhaps this was to illustrate a popular edition based on Rosweyde's forthcoming Vitae patrum. Second: the series was increased (by 1612) to 50 images, Bloemaert supplying  two more anchorets and 25 anchorresses. The entire plate edition of the projected book  (probably without the text on the versos) was printed. Third: for some reason publication was delayed and the Antwerp publisher decided to issue immediately the 50 plates (including the titles) in 1612. Last: the already printed first issue was after a storage of seven years published in 1619 in book form with additional, dated preliminary matter. Perhaps the biographic texts on the versos were only printed at this point.

The second edition of '1612' has no printed title, no preliminaries and no accompanying texts. All the prints are on separate leaves in a different order, with several changes, while two images are omitted; underneath each male saint is a Latin distich by G. Rijckius; the anchoresses are, by contrast, identical with those of the 1619 edition without a distich except for St. Mary of Egypt (Nr. 9), who also exists with a distich analogous to the anchorets.enough these distichs are added here in handwriting. of the original drawings by Abraham Blommaert are preserved in Berlin (4; see; Bock-Rosenberg, p. 10, Nos. 267-270), Amsterdam (1) and Vienna (3; see: Benesh, Die Zeichnungen der Niederl. Schule (1928), nos. 427-9).copy has a very interesting provenance: it was given to an unknown person - perhaps the one whose name is deleted on the verso of the front board - by the famous "R.P. Heriberti Rosweydi Soc. Jesu." (inscription in handwriting on the title). Heribert Rosweijde (Utrecht 1569-1629) is, as mentioned above, the author of the Vitae patrum, a book containing the lives of the early hermits. The explanatory texts to the engravings in the present 1619-edition are extracts from this work. with the fact that the distichs, which would be engraved on the plates for the later '1612-edition' are added in handwriting in our copy, this may suggest that they are written here very shortly after 1619 by Rosweijde himself or by one of his friends.

Very good copy of this beautiful collection of 50 engravings of saints and hermits with a very interesting provenance. Ownership's entries of 'D.A. Oudart' and 'G.F. 1872' and Bookplate of Henri Joseph Francotte on the verso of the front board.- (Some insignificant soiling and spotting at places; some quires and plates (half) loose).
Brunet I, 976; Thieme/Becker IV, 254; Funck 261, 280 (only 24 plates), 324; Hollstein II (after Blommaert), (1): 355-378 (ed. 1610, 24 plates); (2): 379-403; Bakker/Sommervogel VII, cols. 194-5; Hollstein III (B.A. à Bolswert), (1): 96-119 (ed. 1612, 24 plates); (2): 120-144; G. Seelig, Abr. Bloemaert (1997), p. 155-6; M.G. Roethlisberger, Abr. Bloemaert and his sons. Paintings and prints. 2 vols. (1993), vol. 1, p. 171-83 (extensive description of all the plates and further literature) and vol. 2, figs. 262-317.

Related Subjects: Religion 

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