Existing comment:
Illustrated Bibles
According to the book of Genesis, Joseph was given a "coat of many colors" by his father, Jacob. When Joseph's jealous brothers sold him into slavery, they presented Jacob with the robe, stained in animal blood, to convince him that his son had died. These two plates depicting the tale were made in two different workshops but are based on the very same woodcut, found in a popular illustrated Bible. Responding to the challenges of the Protestant Reformation, cheap, abridged, and illustrated Bibles became extremely successful publications in Catholic lands in the mid-1500s. In France, the Lyon publisher Jean de Tournes specialized in producing these pocket-size books, which he published in several languages and marketed throughout Europe. Under their influence, the decoration of maiolica shifted from mythological to biblical and religious subjects in the later sixteenth century. |