1617 Gheeraerts, Master Engraving, Aesop: The Woodcutter, fable

This fable has a hidden message; a moral that depicts honesty as the best policy. The woodcutter only asked for what he needed. He could have said yes in the very first place and taken the priceless axes, but he chose the one he could use. His honesty and humbleness got him the reward of a lifetime.

Marcus Gheeraerts

Issued in the series:

Vorstelijcke warande der dieren; waer in de Zeden-rijcke Philosophie, Poëtisch, Morael, en Historiael, vermakelijck en treffelijck wort voorghestelt

1617

Plate: 9.5 x 11.4 cm. Trimmed to outside plate mark. Text to verso.

Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (c. 1520 – c. 1590) was a Flemish printmaker and painter associated with the English court of the mid-16th century and mainly remembered as the illustrator of the 1567 edition of Aesop's Fables.

Gheeraerts is most noteworthy as a printmaker. He was a keen innovator and experimented with etching at a time when woodcut and engraving were dominant techniques. Gheeraerts' style resembles that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In his own day, Gheeraerts was particularly famous as a draughtsman of birds and animals, and since the Protestant Reformation had halted the church art market, he showcased his talent in the fable book De warachtighe fabulen der dieren from 1567. He etched the title page and 107 fable illustrations and had his friend, Edewaerd de Dene, write the book's fables in Flemish verse.

This edition 1617. Dutch text to verso.

CATALOGUE RAISONNÉ

de Vries, De Nederlandsche Emblemata, 73; Landwehr, Dutch Emblem Books, 252a; Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish, VII, p. 100, nos. 1-108

Clean tear neatly closed and barely visible.