Printed on vellum & signed by both Susanna Verbruggen & Isabella Hertsens.

Susanna Verbruggen / Isabella Hertsens. Vir Mariae. S.l. [Antwerp]: signed in plate S. Verbruggen & Isabella Hertsens, s.a. [18th century]. [11.8 x 9.5 cm], [1] f. engraving on vellum, with contemporary hand-color including gold pigment. Minor staining, remnants of mounting on verso.
 
 
Rare 18th-century engraving on vellum—here in a copy with contemporary hand-color—depicting St. Joseph holding the Christ Child. The print is of note for carrying the signatures of two separate female engraver-publishers, namely Susanna Verbruggen (c. 1684-1752) and Isabella Hertsens (1726-97) of Antwerp.
 
Little is known about the career of Susanna Verbruggen, but recenly Kara Verboven has written about Verbruggen’s status as a “klopje” or “geestelijk dochter” (“filia devota”), i.e., an unmarried Catholic woman in Flanders who took a vow of chastity before a priest or confessor but was not bound by monastic vows (“Susanna Verbruggen: beeldekensvercoopster en andelaeresse,” De Boekenwereld, vol. 41, no. 2 [2025], p. 40). She operated with a certain freedom because of that status. Verbruggen transferred her engraved copperplates to Isabella Hertsens, who apparently was her maid and later also became a “klopje.” I am not aware of any other Isabella Hertsens prints where Susanna Verbruggen’s name was left in the plate.
 
St. Joseph is here depicted standing atop a golden orb and holding his attribute of the lilies or flowering rod. A banderole labels him as “Vir Mariae,” i.e., “Mary’s Man,” or “Mary’s Husband,” This composition and iconography suggests that the work was meant a sort of pendant to a Mary of the Immaculate Conception depicted as the “Refugium Peccatorum,” or “Refuge of Sinners.”
 
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; Anthony Griffiths, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820; O. Thiers, ’t Putje van Heiloo bedevaarten naar O.L. Vrouw ter Nood.