Rose of Lima: Devotional engraving on vellum by Anna Maria Bunel. Unrecorded.
Anna Maria Bunel / [St. Rose of Lima]. S. Rosa de S. Maria virgo Tertiaria Ord. Predicat. S.l. [Antwerp]: “Anna Maria Bunel,” s.a. [c. 1716-66]. [14.0 x 11.0 cm exterior of frame], [1] f. engraving on vellum, with contemporary hand-color. In old, gilded frame, glazed. Some rubbing and chipping to frame. Engraving not examined outside of frame, but apparently well preserved, with colors still fresh.
Unrecorded devotional engraving—here printed on vellum and vibrantly colored by hand—signed by the Antwerp printmaker Anna Maria Bunel (1701-66), whose work is rarely encountered today.
The print depicts Rosa de Lima (1586-1617), the first person born in the Americas to be declared a saint. Today St. Rosa is the patroness of the Americas, of the indigenous people of the Americas, and of Peru, and she is especially venerated in Lima, where her skull is preserved at the Basílica Menor y Convento Máximo de Nuestra Señora del Rosario.
Rose is here depicted in her Dominican habit, kneeling in front of an altar and receiving light from the host in a monstrance. A trellis with roses can be seen outside her window.
Little is known about Anna Maria Bunel beyond the fact that she was trained by her father, the printmaker Michiel Bunel (1670-1739). She signed her engravings with her full name, with the abbreviation “An. Mar.,” or with her initials, “A. M.”
The use of vellum here is of note. Vellum was, compared to earlier periods, rather rarely used in 17th- and 18th-century drawing/painting/printmaking, e.g., by exceptional artists such as Rembrandt, who experimented with exotic supports to achieve subtle visual effects. “Vellum was otherwise only used in luxury book printing (a relic of medieval manuscripts) and, at the opposite extreme, for devotional images, as it was the only material strong enough to withstand the usage it received in the hand of the poorest of the faithful, who carried images of saints on their person as amulets” (Griffiths, p. 32, and see p. 379 for the 18th-century peddler trade of vellum holy images).
I have been unable to locate another copy of this print (not located by OCLC or KVK; and it is not in the Museum Catharijneconvent [Utrecht], or Ruusbroec Institute at the University of Antwerp, which are major repositories of devotional images of this sort).
* E. M. F. Verheggen, Beelden voor Passie & Hartstocht: Bid- en devotieprenten in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 17de en 18de eeuw; E.-H. van Heurck, “Les images de dévotion Anversoises,” De Gulden Passer, vol. 8 (1930), pp. 67-166; Anthony Griffiths, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820.