Emblematic ecstasy

Excerpt from the book 'Théâtre d'amour. The garden of love and its delights'. By Carsten-Peter Warncke

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Love and good-natured humour are announced in equal measure by the title Badineriees d'Amour (Jestings on Love), which opens this collection of hand-coloured copperplate engravings from the late 16th and early 17th century. These engravings were originally issued separately and in their own right; only later were they compiled into book form. Today this remarkable anthology represents a unique document of the culture of ist epoch. The word badinerie (Fr. jest, banter) is a pointer to what lies in the pages ahead: a light-hearted discourse, as so often conducted between lovers, and on the subject of love. This playful repartee is voiced not through dialogue alone, but through words and pictures whose inseparable connection is what makes this anthology so remarkable. Scarcely an image without texts to elucidate it, to enlighten us as to the significance of the motifs illustrated and to tell us the meaning of the whole.

The subjects and artistic styles brought together in this album are as rich and varied as the hues in which its engravings have been hand-coloured. And like the title itself, the form and content of the anthology are open to more than one interpretation. For behind all the bantering and play upon words lies the seriousness of the subject itself: love as the greatest mystery of human co-existence. Beneath the superficial charm of their visual attraction, it is the deeper message of the pictures that captivates us. They seek to hold up human nature to the light and issue an appeal to our moral sensibility. Love assumes countless guises, and assembled here before our eyes is a rich kaleidoscope of artistic devices typical of the 16th and 17th centuries. These include in particular large numbers of compositions termed emblems, but also allegories and proverbs. Alongside the series of the Virtues and Vices we find the Elements, the Ages of Man and the Five Senses - we are presented, in short, with the whole world in overview.

We do not know exactly when, for whom and by whom this anthology was compiled. Later inscriptions on the flyleaves simply tell us that the book, with its collection of over 140 copperplate engravings, passed through the hands of several owners from the 18th century onwards. Around 1700 it formed part of the collection of Jeanne-Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, Countess of Verrue, who lived from 1670 to 1736 and who ranked amongst the most important bibliophiles of the 18th century. (When her library was auctioned in 1717, no fewer than 18,000 volumes went under the hammer.) Rebound in the 19th century - the present binding dates from about 1850 - the anthology subsequently belonged to José M. Catarineu, as named in the bookplate pasted at the front, and afterwards to Otto Schäfer (Schweinfurt industrialist and collector).

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