Censored engravings: Bloemaert’s Desert Hermits & Hermitesses.

[Censorship] / Boetius à Bolswert / Abraham Bloemaert. La forest des hermites et hermitesses d’Egypte, et de la Palestine: representee en figures de cuivre de l’invention d’Abraham Blommaert, taillees par Boece Bolswert. Et de plus illustré d’un succinct recueil de leur vies tire de la vie des Peres. A Anvers: De l’imprimerie de Hierosmo Verdussen, 1619. 4to [21.7 x 15.7 cm], [4] ff. (including [1] f. engraving), [1] p. engraved section title “Sacra eremus ascetarum,” 51 pp. letterpress text on versos each of which are facing engravings on rectos which are 1-25 pp. (hermits), [1] f. engraved section title “Sacra eremus ascetarum,” 1-25 pp. (hermitesses), [1] p. blank verso, with a woodcut initial in the dedication. Bound in contemporary vellum. Losses at upper extremity of spine, loss to part of leather on lower board, rubbing and edge wear, but structurally sound. Loss of bottom corner of title affecting address, edge wear, hand-soiling, marginal tears affecting a few words of text, several engravings censored or effaced by an early user.

Rare French-language version of the 1619 suite of 50 plates of male & female desert hermits engraved in Antwerp by Boetius à Bolswert (c. 1585-1633) after the designs of Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651). This (much handled) copy of La forest des hermites et hermitesses d’Egypte, et de la Palestine is of note because an early user censored many of Bloemaert’s sensuous figures by striking through exposed breasts, décolletages, shoulders, knees, nipples showing through clothing, etc., for both male & female hermits. The face of a tempting demon has also been torn out.

Even the slightest swell of the chest in the engraving of the Virgin Annunciate has been cancelled. In at least one case the censorship has spoiled the sense of the hagiography: Euphrosyna hid her sex to live as a monk and was (literally) exposed when her breast was revealed by a habit malfunction, but here that breast was scribbled away, re-hidden.

The book was dedicated to Countess Anne d’Anthin (158101642), Abbess of the noble Abbey of Messines (Mesen, Belgium).

OCLC and KVK locate U.S. examples of this French-language edition at the Huntington, Princeton, Georgetown & Minnesota. Latin (Sylva anachoretica Aegypti et Palaestinae) and Dutch (‘t Bosch der eremyten ende eremytinnen, van Aegypten ende Palestinen) editions were published concurrently with the French.

Walter S. Melion, “Mixed Emotion and Spiritual Perfection in Abraham Bloemaert’s Sylva anachoretica of 1619,” in Motus mixti et compositi: The Portrayal of Mixed and Compound Emotions in the Visual and Literary Arts of Europe, 1500-1700, eds. Walter S. Melion and Karl A. E. Enenkel, pp. 410-501.