St. Teresa fingers Christ’s wound. By Susanna Verbruggen. On vellum.

Susanna Verbruggen. S. Teresia. S.l. [Antwerp]: Susanna Verbruggen, [first half of 18th century]. [11.1 x 9.3 cm], [1] f. engraving on thick vellum, with contemporary hand-color, including gold pigment. Well preserved.

Unrecorded devotional engraving signed in the plate by the Antwerp engraver-publisher Susanna Verbruggen (c. 1684-1752).

The engraving—here in an example printed on vellum and enhanced with contemporary hand-color— depicts St. Teresa of Ávila (1515-82) fingering the side wound of the resurrected Christ, an event which occurred in one of her visions (on this topic, see Elizabeth Newman, Attending to the Wounds on Christ’s Body: Teresa’s Scriptural Vision).

Little is known about the career of Susanna Verbruggen. Weitenkampf noted of her simply: “Lived in the 17th century” (p. 113, no. 488), although other sources give her dates as 1684/85 to 1752. Verbruggen’s name appears several times in passing in the standard reference works both as an engraver and as a publisher.

Recently 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). (Note that the printer-publisher Susanna Verbruggen she is not to be confused with the 17th-century English actress of the same name).

Vellum impressions of prints from this era are quite scarce. The material was only rarely used in early modern 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).

This print is not located in the collections of the Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, or the Ruusbroec Insititute (Univerity of Amsterdam), which are the major repositories for prints of this sort.

*Anthony Griffiths, The Print before Photography: An Introduction to European Printmaking 1550-1820; Frank Weitenkampf, Catalogue of a Collection of Engravings, Etchings and Lithographs by Women Exhibited at the Grolier Club (1901); E. M. F. Verheggen, Beelden voor Passie & Hartstocht: Bid- en devotieprenten in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 17de en 18de eeuw; Elizabeth Newman, Attending to the Wounds on Christ’s Body: Teresa’s Scriptural Vision; Kara Verboven, “Susanna Verbruggen: beeldekensvercoopster en andelaeresse,” De Boekenwereld, vol. 41, no. 2 (2025), p. 40; E.-H. van Heurck, “Les images de dévotion Anversoises,” De Gulden Passer, vol. 8 (1930), pp. 67-166

$925.00