Animal: A Beastly Compendium

a Pair of skating owls by anonymous

This 1663 French print is a copy of an engraving by Adriaen Matham of Holland, after a work by Adriaen Van de Venne who created images

of animals disguised as humans. Van de Venne’s skating owls were a covert political satire, representing the Archduke Albert and his wife, Isabella, of Austria, governors of the Low Countries. The print simply suggests a moralising comment on

the vanity and folly of mankind.

Edited extract from Animal: A

Beastly Compendium by Rémi Mathis and Valérie Sueur-hermel. Published by Bloomsbury Visual

Arts. RRP £30.

Treasures from the prints and photographs department at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France