Bizarre

  1. Lepic, Ce qui Restait du Puissant Guillaume de Naillac
  2. Claeaz, Dancers with Death
  3. Anonymous American, A Naked Man and Horse
  4. Klinger, Amor, Tod und Jenseits (Love, Death and the Hereafter)
  5. Surugue, La Folie pare la Décrépitude
  6. Legros, La Légende du Bonhomme Misère : La Mort dans le Poirier
  7. Rops, L’Enlèvement
  8. Sadeler, Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity
  9. Mohlitz, La Vierge aux Étrons (The Virgin of Turds)
  10. Legrand, Épaves de Famille (Oddballs of the Family)
  11. Jacquemart, L’Écurueil (sic)
  12. Benassit, L’Absinthe!
  13. de Bry, Punishment of the Mutinous Indians
  14. Goncourt, Le Singe au Miroir (The Monkey at the Mirror)
  15. Callot, Les Martyrs du Japon
  16. Dillon, Les Mendiants (The Beggars)
  17. Barberis, The Witch
  18. Budzinski, The Thirsty Giant
  19. Meryon, Le Ministère de la Marine
  20. Torre-Bueno, Death’s Arrival
  21. van Meurs, Animals of America
  22. Redon, Félinerie
  23. Chagall, Le Vixe
  24. Martin, Indécision (Tête de Femme)
  25. Rops, Le Calvaire
  26. Rops, Les Frères de la Bonne Trogne
  27. Gillray, Tentanda via est qua ve quoque possim Tollere humo
  28. Underwood, Simian Ecstasy
  29. Veber, Beheaded!
  30. Strang, Death and the Ploughman’s Wife: Frontispiece
  31. Corman, The Temptation of Saint Anthony
  32. Bliss, Gargoyles Spouting
  33. Castellón, Of Land and Sea
  34. Eichenberg, Isaiah 11
  35. Rops, L’Idole (The Idol)
  36. Master MZ, Aristotle and Phyllis
  37. Bracquemond, “Hors de mon soleil, canailles!"
  38. Spare, Nemesis
  39. Higgens, Forgotten
  40. Anonymous, Jewish Amulet to Protect Mother and Child
  41. Daumier, Une Expérience Qui Réussit Trop Bien
  42. Seligmann, Le Roi du Charbon (King Charcoal)
  43. Braun, The Release of Force
  44. Callot, Le Grand Rocher
  45. Forest, Bâstard Foetus Hérédité, Comte D’Averton Mort-Né
  46. Jacque, La Souricière
  47. Veber, “Ah! Qu’il fait chaud"
  48. Pastelot, Les Sorcières
  49. Lepic, Le Verger du Roi Louis (The Orchard of King Louis)
  50. Grandville, Résurrection de la Censure
  51. Tidemann, The Earth Swallows Up the People of Korah
  52. Shields, The Descent
  53. Redon, C’est le diable
  54. Sadeler, Ita Erit et Aventus Filii Hominis

8. Raphael Sadeler I (1561-1632) after
Joos van Winghe

Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity

(click on image to print)
Sadeler, Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity

Allegory of Opulence, Fornication and Stupidity

Etching and engraving, 1588, 288 x 347 mm., Hollstein 186, TIB 169 ii or iii/iii. Brilliant impression on laid paper, trimmed slightly into the subject, removing a line of text at the top and possibly at the bottom, and re-margined. There is an old collector’s numbering in ink verso. One could spend years parsing the symbology of this print: the coxcomb being placed on the head of the king (fool); the elegantly-dressed but pig-headed figure of Stupidity; the ape on the floor (sin, lust); the mirror that reflects future age rather than present beauty; money and the appurtenances of riches everywhere; etc. Add to this the classic, Romanesque architectural setting and the Mannerist twists and torsions of the figures and one has an image not merely bizarre but disturbing and worth staring at for a long, long time. We have not seen another impression of this print for sale.