Printer's Device for Jan van Keerbergen: Vignette for Biblia Cum Glossa Ordinaria

Art Historical Context

This 1617 engraving by Hans Collaert the Younger is a printer’s device created for the publisher Jan van Keerbergen. Intended as a decorative vignette for an edition of the Biblia Cum Glossa Ordinaria—the Bible accompanied by its influential medieval commentary—it functioned as both a mark of identification and an ornamental flourish on an important religious publication. Collaert, a skilled Flemish engraver from a prominent Antwerp family of printmakers, worked in the refined, detailed manner typical of early-seventeenth-century Northern European print production. The work is an engraving on laid paper and survives here as a proof impression, revealing the artist’s precise incised lines before any later adjustments. Engraving, an intaglio process, was especially valued for its ability to produce crisp, repeatable images that could be inserted into books, making it ideal for title pages, emblems, and scholarly texts. Such printer’s devices combined practical branding with allegorical or symbolic imagery, reflecting the prestige of both the publisher and the sacred content. In an era when Antwerp remained a major center of Catholic printing, this small yet elaborate print illustrates how artistry, commerce, and devotion intersected on the pages of early modern books.

About the Artist

Hans Collaert the Younger

**Hans Collaert the Younger (Jan Collaert II)** Born around 1561 in Antwerp, in the Spanish Netherlands (modern-day Belgium), Hans Collaert the Younger—also known as Jan Baptist Collaert I—was the son of the engraver Hans Collaert I and Anna van der Heijde, and the younger brother of fellow engraver Adriaen Collaert. He received his training under his brother Adriaen, as well as the prominent pub...