Detail of a witch feeding her familiars. Woodcut, England, late sixteenth century. The frontispiece (see below) to the witch hunter Mathew Hopkins‘ infamous pamphlet The Discovery of Witches (London, 1647) is a classic image, and rightly so: few texts better evoke the strangeness of the early modern witch hunt. I suppose the author, publisher and …
Continue reading “Witches’ Familiars in 17th Century Europe (February 2011 update)”
Today’s image is a surreal print by one of the last great masters of traditional Japanese woodblock printing, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861). An assemblage of black and white, tan and calico cats, looking quite content with themselves, float in an abstract color field of steel gray, cream and blue, their twisting bodies forming an approximation of …
Continue reading “Image of the Week 3: "Cats Forming the Characters for ‘Catfish’"”
The brilliant eighteenth century impostor George Psalmanazar (1679?-1763) is one of my favorite historical figures and someone I’ll return to at a later date to write about in more depth. Today I’m just going to post some of his drawings, which were discovered by the historian Frederick Folely, S.J., in a sheaf of Church documents …
Prince Giolo, Son of ye King of Moangis or Gilolo: lying under the Equator in the Long[itude] of 152 Deg[rees] 30 Min[utes], a fruitful Island abounding with rich spices and other valuable Commodities. This famous Painted Prince is the just Wonder of ye Age. His whole Body (except Face, Hands and Feet) is curiously and …
Benjamin Breen