German School 17th Century

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Description

a group of hunters approaching a traveller and his dog, an angel in flight above him
inscribed in brown ink, lower left: WAN ES AL GHELOEPEN IS VNDT Gheronnen / soe Habben wir Nur [?] Den Coost ghewonnen [When all is over and past / we only have the cost to show for it];
upper centre: sÿt zu frieden oindt A...et [?] Den Coost zur selichaÿt / soe ist Recht anghelecht alle mue oindt arbaÿt [Be content and...the cost of blessedness / in this way is all effort and work well spent];
lower right: Der Macdt is Dem mach Wort Lusten / aien ordt zu finden om zu Rusten [Power is dependent on the order / to find a place in which to arm oneself]
pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk

Catalogue Note

The hunters, the hermit with his dog and the angel seen in this drawing, each with a rhyming couplet, follow the tradition of early 17th-Century Dutch emblem books. These publications illustrated the life, work and customs of Dutch society using moralizing proverbs alongside allegorical images. Adriaen van de Venne is perhaps the best known artist of this genre, for his work illustrating the poetry of Jacob Cats (see L.J. Bol, Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne: Painter and Draughtsman, Doornspijk 1989, pp. 128-141).
Although emblem books are not known to have been as popular in Germany as they were in Holland, the author of this sheet appears more likely to have been German than Dutch, or at least resident in South Germany. The script is not Gothic, and the German phrases the artist employs include the Dutch 'ij', but the proverbs seem to be transliterating a South German dialect, for example the use of 'oindt' for 'und'.