the new emotional blackmailer's handbook: heraldry

Showing posts with label heraldry. Show all posts

Sunday, March 10, 2024

franz stuck ... is best known as an expressive painter of latently erotic images ... but he was also a mighty fine designer ... here he made some impressive heraldic designs

although i can't make much sense of the mottos

in either of them ...

Thursday, March 7, 2024

concordia parux res crescunt ... THE MERCHANT TAYLORS' motto revised ... PARODY AND / OR PASTICHE ? ... i never clearly understood the distinction between pastiche and parody ... maybe this little work of art condenses both senses into one creation ... first, the variant ... then, the original ...

THE MERCHANT TAYLORS GUILD is very nearly seven hundred years old and is rightly proud of its status and its achievements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worshipful_Company_of_Merchant_Taylors

Official Blazon

Arms : Argent, a pavilion imperial purple [i.e. crimson] garnished Or [lined ermine] between two mantles also imperial purple [lined ermine]; on a chief azure a lion passant [guardant] gold.

Crest: On a wreath argent and azure, On a mount vert a lamb argent in sunbeams Or. Mantled gules, doubled argent.

Supporters: On either side a camel Or.

Motto: Concordia parvae res crescunt

Origin/meaning

The arms were officially granted on 23 December 1586 to replace an earlier grant of 23 October 1481.

The new grant substituted a lion of England for the holy lamb on the chief, and to replace the crest of Virgin and Child with a secular version of the holy lamb: "a lambe silver in the sonne beames golde"; the camel supporters were also added at this time.

While it is possible that suppression of the religious symbols was a late effect of the Reformation, it is at least equally likely that the change was due to a desire to conform to a more austere taste in heraldry. A number of guilds had expediently secularized their arms during the period of the Reformation, and as late as 1582 the Parish Clerks had sought a new grant because their arms were " over muche charged with certayne superstition ".

The arms show an pavilion and two mantles, both indicating the trade of a tailor. Initially the guild consisted of tailors and armourers, the latter making the inner, textile, layers of armory. But already by the time of the 2nd charter, many members were more merchants as tailors. The name, however, was not changed. The pavilion which survives in the current arms was no doubt inspired by the similar canopy in which the Virgin sits in the 1481 crest; such canopies of dignity are familiar accompaniments to religious personages in art, and are similarly used in the arms of the Upholders.

Both the ancient crest of Virgin and Child, and the holy lamb allude to the Company's origin as a fraternity of St. John the Baptist, deriving as religious emblems from the Gospel of St. John

The lion of England on the chief refers to the royal charter granted by Henry VII, and the royal patronage is alluded to by this royal charge.

The camels first appear as supporters in 1586, but it is clear that the animal was already an established symbol of the Company. A camel was in fact an habitual feature of Merchant Taylors' pageants in the sixteenth century, and it may be that the beast was intended as a reference to the eastern trade of the Merchant Company, as was the camel crest of the Grocers, but no evidence has been found to confirm this.

It has also been speculated that the camels are a further reference to St. John Baptist, who, according to tradition, often is shown as wearing a camel fur cloak.

The exact origin thus is not clear.

The motto is a quotation from Gaius Sallustius Crispus:

"Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maxumae dilabuntur", with harmony small things grow, while with discord the mightiest are ruined.

SO FAR SO GOOD ...

I knew nothing of the Merchant Taylors until yesterday when i came across an unusual piece of artwork in a surprising place.

I was looking for images of unicorns and phoenixes in heraldic contexts and was scanning through some rare books that are freely available on-line through archive.org

https://archive.org/details/gri_33125008889384/page/n261/mode/2up

After looking at hundreds of images my weary eye was caught by a design that lacked conventional balance or symmetry.

Yer tiz ...

CONCORDIA PARUX RES CRESCUNT

I don't read Latin but quickly found a translation using the Google App.

Waggish ! ... innit ? and seems appropriate in the context of the iconoclastic imagery.

So, wondering where it came from, I subsequently arrived at the original Merchant Taylors' motto ... sideways, so-to-speak ... and learned that it had itself been derived from the Roman historian, Sallust.

Full explanation here ...

https://www.merchant-taylors.co.uk/news/the-company-motto

Well, as you can guess, I was highly amused, and remain deeply impressed by the artist's wit and subtlety.

And my pleasure was amplified by the improbability of having found it in an antique German book held in a Californian library.

So the big question was ... how do we discover the name of the artist ?

The artist's initials appear to be H. K.

British ? or German ? After all, Latin was a widely used language.

Elsewhere I found the same artist had signed himself H KAUFMANN MUNCHEN, so the litho was made in Germany, for publication in Vienna.

And is this 1882 German lithograph derived from an English source ?

Perhaps from a tapestry or a carpet design ?

fortunately ... the beginning of Volume 2 had some scrupulously catalogued detail about the lithographers' who contributed ... although the old-fashioned Gothic typography strained my mind as well as my eyes ...

Amusingly and understandably, the book's editor seems to have decided that the Merchant Taylors' arms were those of a tent-maker ( Zeltmacher ) ...

But we have a name for the lithographer ... it looks like ... D? KAUFMANN

... although so far I have found no corroborative evidence for this ID ...

so, not only, but also ...

the book's German-speaking editor had ( possibly, maybe ) quite understandably mistaken the Merchant Taylors' emblem for that of a TENTMAKER ... zeltmacher !

But is it a mistake ?

Later on, I remembered that tents were a big purchase item for market traders, armies and generals, even diplomats and kings .... think: field of the cloth of gold, etc

SO I AM CURRENTLY STUMPED BY THREE QUESTIONS ...

The proper name and any biographical detail of the 19thC lithographer.

The original source of his image, if copied.

The age or origin of the scholarly "joke", itself.

HELP ! ... CAN ANYONE HELP ?

Addendum ...

also ... next day ...

The University at Heidelberg have a slightly crisper scan ...

... still have no information on D Kaufmann ( one eff ! )

Germany has a state museum of graphic design in munich with a big website but it is hard to navigate if you don't understand how to label the fields in their database

https://emp.graphische-sammlung.mwn.de/eMuseumPlus