print;
title-page
- Museum number
- 1858,0417.1228
- Description
-
Title-page with title written in a rectangle placed in a classical monument, surmounted by the personification of 'Optics', a female figure holding a sceptre and a model of a pyramid, and flanked by an eagle and a peacock; Mercury holding the head of Argus at left, Minerva holding a shield with a Gorgon's head at right; after Peter Paul Rubens; title to first edition of Franciscus Aguilon's "Opticorum" (Antwerp: 1613). c.1613
Engraving
- Production date
- 1613
- Dimensions
-
Height: 310 millimetres
-
Width: 197 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The copper-plate is in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp. For a masked impression see 1858,0417.1229. For six vignettes (one for each book) see 1858,0417.1325-1330.
See the related drawing 1861,0608.148 (Hind 34; J. Rowlands, 'Rubens: Drawings and Sketches', British Museum ex. cat. 1977, no. 205).
Lit.: J.Richard Judson and C. Van de Velde, 'Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, Book illustrations and title-pages', XXI, London 1978, no. 10.
Rowlands, Rubens: Drawings and Sketches, BMP 1977:
Between 30 March and 22 June 1612 Theodore Galle received seventy-five florins in payment from the Moretus brothers for engraving the illustrations of this book and for the copper plate which is still in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp. Rubens received twenty florins for his design. The book is also illustrated by six vignettes engraved by Theodore Galle after designs by Rubens. Aguilon, author of this treatise on Optics, was a member of the Jesuit College in Antwerp.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1990 Sep-Dec, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Rubens and Printmaking
- Associated titles
Associated Title: Opticorum libri sex (Antwerp, 1613)
- Acquisition date
- 1858
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1858,0417.1228
