[Six Bunches of Flowers in Vases] A Suite of Emblematic Florilegium Engravings

Set of six engraved plates numbered I-III [-IV-VI], featuring bouquets in ornate vases, surrounded by insects, and one snail, engraved mottos on scrolls beneath, plate size 288 x 255mm, each mounted separately, [Cologne, engraved and produced by Johann Bussemecher after Theodor de Bry, 1604]

An Extremely Rare Complete Suite Of These Attractive And Beautifully Engraved Emblematic Images Of Bouquets In Striking Baroque Vases, With Mottoes. These images were originally commissioned and engraved by Theodor de Bry after a series of paintings by the floral artist Jacob Kempener. De Bry’s prints were innovative in introducing the subject into the graphic media. In all of them the flowers are arranged in such a way as to establish a strong degree of lateral symmetry: what Bergstöm called the ‘radial composition’ (Bergström, 1973).

The verse mottos run through the declensions of the Latin word for flower, Flos, and seem to comment on the arrangements depicted— tender buds for tender youth, wilting blooms for age, etc. It is interesting that different kinds of meanings are attributed to the flowers, they are not just monotonously to remind us of our mortality. The series was published in Frankfurt c.1600, with the first engraving titled Polyptoton de Flores (The Variations of Flowers). The present set was re-engraved in reverse (excepting the inscriptions) in Cologne by Johann Bussemecher. [New Hollstein, IV 43; De Jong and De Groot, Ornamentprenten in het Rijksprentenkabinet I (1988), n 355.]