Sometimes the identity of the initial letter of the surname with that of the Christian name gives rise to a curious device in their combination. Thus, the signature of Francis Floris, a German engraver, who died about the middle of the seventeenth century, reverses the former of the two FFs, placing them back to back, with the down stroke common to both letters; while that of Francis Frederic Frank, in which the same letter is three times repeated, drove the ingenuity of the artist to a still more curious combination—the three letters being kept perfectly independent, yet interlaced, or rather overlapped, so that their lines exhibit a figure which has the curious property, like the cabalistic Abracadabra, of presenting the same appearance from whatever point it may be viewed.
Another, and often more puzzling uncertainty, may arise out of the practice of adding to the ordinary letters of the name, the initials F, P, D, or I—representing fecit, pinxit, delineavit, or invenit. Without adverting to this circumstance, few would recognise the distinguished name of Anthony van Dyck, in the monogram which he habitually employed, and of which the F seems to form a principal part; or that of our dear old friend, Hans Hemling, in the still more perplexing symbol by which his very best works may be distinguished. But besides the variations of which the letters are susceptible when grouped in this manner, many of the artists have indulged in a variety of strange and puzzling accompaniments.
A more interesting class of monograms are those which employ symbols instead of letters; or, what is not uncommon, use both letters and symbols in combination. Many of these resemble the illustrated enigmas which have become fashionable in the pictorial journals both of England and of foreign countries, and of which Mr Knight, in the last issue of his Penny Magazine, set so beautiful an example in the poetical enigmas of Mr Mackworth Praed. The general character of this class will be sufficiently indicated by the example of the Italian painter, Palma, whose name is translated palm, and who used the emblem of a palm as well as the initial of his family name; or the still more characteristic one of a painter of Tübingen, Jacob Züberlein (little tub), who appended to his literal monogram the simple and striking, though not very graceful, emblem of a tub.
The several classes which are here slightly indicated, contain under them many subordinate varieties, which it would be tedious to enumerate, and which, indeed, it would be almost impossible to classify. It is a remarkable circumstance, however, in the history of art, that the signatures of the most distinguished painters are precisely those which, for themselves, and for their forms, possess the least interest. With few exceptions, it may be said of the great painters, that they appear to have avoided the affectation of the use of monograms; and certainly that those who did employ them, selected the very simplest and least fantastic forms. The greatest masters of the art—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Guido, Domenichino, Paul Veronese, Rubens, Guercino, Agostino Caracci, and many hardly less distinguished artists—either omitted to sign their pictures at all, or signed their name at full length, sometimes with the addition of their local surname, or employed the initial syllables or letters of their name in the ordinary Roman form, without any attempt at grouping them into a monogram. Even Salvator Rosa, with all the wildness and extravagance of his manner, used an exceedingly simple combination of the initials of his name. The monogram of the great Spanish painter, Bartholomew Esteban [Stephen] Murillo, consists simply of the three initial letters of the name, signed in the common Roman character, and combined with perfect simplicity, except that there is a curious inversion of their order. That of his countryman, Joseph Ribera—better known as Espagnoletto—is merely the combination of the same letters, written in a cursive hand; and his signature is even occasionally found at full length, or very slightly abridged.
There is one curious exception to this general preference for simplicity among the masters of the first class—that of the celebrated Anthony Allegri, more commonly known under his surname, Correggio. This eminent painter did not think a pun beneath the dignity of his art, and, accordingly, the device by which he distinguishes his pictures consists of a punning symbol, representing his name. We need hardly explain to our readers that Correggio may be read Cor (cuore) Reggio (Royal Heart.) The painter has expressed this pun in two different ways: by the figure of a heart, with the word Reggio inscribed upon it in Roman letters; and again by the still more punning emblem of a heart surmounted by a crown, or, it should rather be said, of a crowned, and therefore royal, heart. In confirmation, however, of the general tendency to simplicity which we have observed as prevailing among his great contemporaries, we should add that some of Correggio's pictures are signed with the initial syllables of his name, printed in the ordinary Roman character.
It is perhaps more remarkable, that even among the humorists the same simplicity should have prevailed. Our own Hogarth, both the Tenierses, Hans Holbein, Ostade, even Callot himself, with all his extravagant and capricious fantasies, fall into the general rule; and the lady artists, Diana Chisi, Angelica Kaufmann, and Anna Maria Schurman, may be cited as equally exhibiting the same simplicity. There are some, indeed, in whom this affectation of simplicity goes almost to the length of rudeness. A charming cabinet picture, in the possession of the writer of these pages, by the celebrated Philip Wouvermans, well known for the familiar 'gray horse' which characterises all his pictures, is scratched with a P. W. which would disgrace the lowest form in a charity school. And, with every allowance for haste and indifference, it is impossible not to suspect something like affectation in the rude and sprawling signatures which we sometimes find, not only in ancient, but even in comparatively modern artists.
It would carry us far beyond our allotted limits to pursue further the examination of individual monograms. But there are some in the class of symbolical monograms, already referred to, which we must notice more in detail. Most of the monograms of this class, like that of Correggio, given above, involve a pun, sometimes, indeed, not a very recondite one. Thus the French artist, Jacob Stella, who died in 1647, invariably signs his pictures with a star—a device which the modern artist, Frederic Morgenstern, has applied to himself, representing his own name by the letter M, prefixed to the same symbol.
In the same way, an ancient artist, Lauber (leaf-gatherer), adopted a leaf (in German, Laub), as his symbol. Haus Weiner, in allusion to the genial beverage from which his name is derived, marked his works with the sign of a bunch of grapes. David Vinkenbooms (Anglice, tree-finch), a Dutch painter of the sixteenth century, took a 'finch perched upon a branch of a tree' as his pictorial emblem. Birnbaum (pear-tree) employed a similar emblem; while the monogram of Bernard Graat, a Dutch painter, who lived in the end of the seventeenth century, though utterly without significance to an English eye, would at once suggest the name of the painter to his own countrymen: Graat, in Dutch, signifying the spine of a fish, represented in this curious monogram.
The history of another emblem is perhaps still more remarkable. By a singular and perhaps humorously intended coincidence, three German painters, George Hufnagel, Sebastian Scharnagel, and John Nothnagel, have all employed the same homely emblem—a nail; the German name of which, Nagel, enters into the composition of all three surnames. Hufnagel (hoof-nail) has signed his pictures with a horse-shoe nail, sometimes crossed, sometimes curiously intertwined with the letters of his Christian name. Scharnagel has combined with a nail the figure of a spade or shovel (schar); while Nothnagel distinguishes himself from both by prefixing the letter N to their common emblem.
There is more of delicacy and ingenuity in the device employed by a female wood-engraver in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Isabella Quatrepomme (four-apple.) She was accustomed to sign her works with a neat and spirited sketch of an apple, marked with the numeral IV. This mark is found upon some old French woodcuts still in existence. There was some similar allusion, we have no doubt, concealed in the device of John Maria Pomedello, an Italian engraver of the time of Leo X. and Clement VII.; it has occasioned much speculation to the learned in these matters, but we must confess our inability to decipher all its significance. Nor was the use of these punning emblems confined to masters of the fine arts. Printers, too, frequently introduced them. The symbols of the olive, the sword, the dolphin, &c. so familiar to all bibliographers, had their origin in this fanciful taste; and a more direct example than any—the leading feature of which is a rude image of a spur—is to be found in the imprint of the curious old German books published by Hans Sporer (spur-maker) during the very first years after the introduction of printing into Germany. Editions of books, with this characteristic imprint, still reckon among the choicest gems in a German book-collector's library, of what the amateurs in this department have chosen to call Incunabeln.