Anonymous print maker (17th century)

DE GEKUYPTE EDICKT KAMER, NU VOLMAEKT DOOR HEERSDORST, ONRECHT, EN VALSE RAET. [The Plotting Chamber]

Name: DE GEKUYPTE EDICKT KAMER, NU VOLMAEKT DOOR HEERSDORST, ONRECHT, EN VALSE RAET. [The Plotting Chamber]
SKU: 59605
Price: 90.00 EUR
Availability: OutOfStock

Satirical print illustrating the election of Theodorus Dominicus as head of the church in 1683. As Joke Spaans in her comprehensive publication on satirical prints and religion in the Netherlands report":’… No less than four satirical poems circulated in print in 1683, as well as two pamphlets in that same year and another in 1684. Moreover, several prints appeared, with or without accompanying text. Apparently the demand for the latter was so lively, that most of the copper plates were reworked several times and their imagery embellished, in order to serve this market. The poems reflect the shock a the outrageous events at Dominicus’ inauguration. […] Most of the satirical pints perfectly illustrate the arguments brought forward in these pamphlets. In one of them we see the consistory chamber. Two ministers, their heads bare, and sixteen elders and deacons, all wearing their hats, the badge of authority, are seated around an oval table. The reinstallation of this revolutionary piece of furniture is no attested in the sources, but the print shows is fateful ‘democratic’ effects. the ministers discuss papers lying in front of them: one marked ‘sermon’, the other ‘Ezechiel 18’identifying the document as Dominicus’ allegedly unorthodox sermon. The backrests of the eight chairs facing the viewer bear primitive drawings. They are puns on the names or professions of the men in the chairs, all supporters of Dominicus. The print has lines of text, like balloons, next to each seated man’s head. Together they make up a poem, reflecting the deliberations leading to the election of Dominicus, against the doubts of German ministers. Inscribed on the table top are two rhymed lines lamenting the blindness of the entire company. The message of the print, expressed in its caption: THE PLOTTING CHAMBER, FULLY DOMINATED BY AMBITION, INJUSTICE AND FALSE COUNSEL, is pictorially reinforced by the tell-tale barrel in the lower right corner of the picture. the elder wearing a hat and lifting a generously sized wineglass, and the bearheaded minister who are overseeing the cooper busily tightening the hoops of a barrel are undoubtedly Dirck Dominicus, the father of the new minister, and Paulus Weslingh, his fellow Hoppean and predecessor as minister in Leiden. The barrel, the symbol of the victorious cabal, is said to be ‘filled with lies and bound by pride’. For good measure five fools caper around the seated company. hey carry symbolic objects: from right to left a cat and a dog (proverbial fighters); a pillar and rapier (defence and attack); a barrel and a house (scheming and the inn where the schemers convened), a stock fish and a cock (the one that gets beaten, like the stock fish which has to be tenderised by beating, and the victor). The last fool holds a mirror, and his clothes are imprinted with eyeglasses. A line of text calls upon the men around the table to look at themselves, and reconsider their disgrace and the sad state to which they have brought their church. […] There is , however, a version with yet a sixth fool, with a jauntily feathered cap, lifting a somewhat sheepish-looking young man, with his hat in his hand over the barrel on a jack. The young man must be the newly elected Theodorus Dominicus himself. It is possible that he copper plates were reworked after they had become won with use, and that he additions were made to generate new interest in prints that had already sold in large number…." From Spaans, Joke. Graphic Satire and Religious Change : The Dutch Republic 1676-1707. Leiden, 2011, p. 98-100, plate 5.

SKU: 59605

Etching; tot: 112 x 177 mm, small margins, attached to a large piece of laid paper with pencil and pen annotations. PH4R

€ 108,90 (€ 90,00 ex. btw)

Out of stock