Proteus, ofte, Minne-beelden verandert in sinne-beelden
Jacob Cats's Dutch emblem book of 1627, printed in Rotterdam by Pieter van Waesberge, with round engravings cut by Jan Gerrits Swelinck after designs by Adriaen van de Venne, made for literate burghers who read each picture three ways — in love, in morals, and in faith. The plates set single scenes inside circles with hatched corner spandrels: a piper beside a stranded whale, a swaggering youth with sword and smoking sky, birds at baited bowls, townsmen at a grafted tree — usable as vignette roundels, costume and landscape sources, and decorative corner fills.
