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The Prints of Hieronymus Bosch

2002; Association of College and Research Libraries; Volume: 39; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5860/choice.39-6214

1943-5975

Paul . Illustrateur Lafond, Hieronymus Bosch, Susan Fargo Gilchrist,

Architecture and Art History Studies

[From the Editor’s Introduction:] Paul Lafond’s chapter on prints in his Hieronymus Bosch: Son art, son influence, ses disciples (1914) is based on a list of prints compiled by Maurice Gossart for Jerome Bosch: Le “faizeur de dyables” de Bois-le-Duc (1907), which in turn was based on earlier lists. It is somewhat more inclusive than F. W. H. Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700 (1949-), and for that reason is more interesting as a survey of the Bosch prints. We have included Hollstein’s numbering in this volume, and have also followed Hollstein’s decisions as to which Lafond number to assign to which print since Hollstein has become the standard reference. There has been very little commentary on the prints after Bosch, aside from some notes by E. Taverne on a few prints in the catalogue for the 1967 Jheronimus Bosch exhibition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This is partly because surveys of prints tend to be organized according to authors, and Hieronymus Bosch clearly could not be held responsible for all or probably any of the prints included here, with the possible exception of a tiny print of St. Christopher here as no. A-3. This does not detract from their interest, since the Hieronymus Bosch who lived in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and died in 1516 was not always the only person to be called a Hieronymus Bosch. The most famous example is Bruegel who was a “novus hic Hieronymus Orbi Boschius” in Lampsonius’ portrait series. The claims that Bosch’s style of painting was invented in ancient Greece are not so much rhetoric as they are explanations of so many artists inventing pictures in the same style. The notion that the prints reproduce original drawings or paintings by Bosch goes back to at least to Hieronymus Cock, who added the claim that “Bosch invented” (Bos. inv.) to prints based on drawings by Bruegel and others, and the list of prints thought to be after originals by Bosch grew in the nineteenth century when connoisseurs with good eyesight, a good memory, and no photocopy machines thought they recognized Bosch’s style in various old and not-so-old prints, including some seventeenth century pastiches of Bosch’s style. I have tried to organize the notes on individual prints in such a way as to make it easy for the reader to distinguish Lafond’s commentary from my own notes on a few of the prints (marked Translator), to refer back to Hollstein, The Illustrated Bartsch, and other recent sources relating to the prints, and also to trace titles and attributions in older catalogues. The older lists of Bosch prints give a sense of what was considered to be a “Bosch” style in the nineteenth century, which was something quite different from the “Bosch” of the drawings attributed to the same artist. Lafond’s chapter is translated “as is,” and I have followed Hollstein’s identifications of individual prints to avoid confusion. A few prints have been added at the end, numbered A-1 through A-12...but there has been no attempt to include all copies or prints that might relate to Bosch, or to sort through Bruegel prints and decide which ones have more to do with Bosch. The bibliography includes sources mentioned in the text and various sources apt to be consulted in the context of Bosch prints.