Drinking too much makes us look like pigs

Engraving, 1596, without signature. After Karel van Mander.

Lettered ‘HOS RITUS CELEBRANT EPICURI DE GREGE PORCI’ and numbered ‘14’.

A fine impression of the first issue, printed on contemporary laid paper, with thin margins, very good condition.

A drunken young man lies vomiting in a ditch. He is held by his mate, who points to two men in the background carrying away a large barrel of beer. Two sober barrel carriers are capable of carrying a full barrel of beer, while a drunk can't take anything (anymore). The moral: beware of immoderate drinking with all its ill consequences.

Emblem No. 14 in Emblemata saecularia, mira et iucunda varietate saeculi huius mores ita exprimentia, 1596 and No. 35 in the second edition of 1611.

The engravings were mainly after Hans Bol, Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Breughel, Karel van Mander, Maarten de Vos etc.

The De Brys are best known as book publishers who were active in Frankfurt am Main and for some time in nearby Oppenheim. They were renowned for lavishly illustrated multi-volume projects such as the monumental volumes treating America with many plates derived from drawings by John White.

Theodor de Bry (1528-1598) was trained as a goldsmith and his early years were spent in Liège in the southern Netherlands and Strasbourg, where in 1560 he enrolled as a member of the Guild of Goldsmiths. He married and his sons Johann Theodor (b.1563) and Johann Israel (b.1565) later became his apprentices. He travelled to Antwerp (1577-1585) and London (1585-1588) which saw a transition to engraving. The subsequent move to Frankfurt saw a decisive shift into book publishing.

At the same time as publishing books, the De Brys produced emblem books and printed alba amicorum such as the Emblemata nobilitati (1592) and Emblemata saecularia (1596). Most of the prints are essentially remarkable miniaturised copies of works by Sebald Beham, Pieter Bruegel the elder, Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, and a myriad of others.

Bibliografia

Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts c.1450-1700 (240-287).