Pray for the Soul of [Your Name Here]. Signed by Isabella Hertsens of Antwerp.

Isabella Hertsens. Ontfermt u mynder, Ontfermt u mynder ten minsten gy myne vrinden. Bid voor de Siel van [blank].  S.l. [Antwerp]: Isabella Hertsens, s.a. [c. 1745-52]. [9.4 x 6.1 cm], [1] f. engraving on thick vellum with contemporary hand-color. Dusty, rubbed, colors somewhat faded.
 
 
Rare (no U.S. copies) and very unusual devotional engraving—here printed on vellum and embellished with contemporary hand-color—by the engraver-publisher Isabella Hertsens (1725-52) of Antwerp. Hertsens was one of a handful of named female printmakers working in that city during the first half of the 18th century. 
 
The engraving is a ‘blank form’ ex voto with which one was meant to help the soul of a friend in Purgatory. The Dutch text at the bottom of the print reads “Pray for the Soul of …” (“Bid voor de Siel van…”), and there follows a space to write in a name. No name was ever added to this copy. 
 
The resurrected Christ is depicted standing atop a pedestal. Blood gushing from His wounds quenches the flames burning souls in Purgatory. The text at the top of the print can be translated “Have mercy on me, Have mercy on me, at least you, my friends.”
 
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). 
 
 
Copies of this print are recorded at the University of Antwerp (Ruusbroec Institute Library) and at the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht.
 
* 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, esp. p. 125; Anthony Griffiths, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820.