The Goddæuses' Dürer-Inspired Trademark: The Meanings, Origins, and Strategic Uses of a Seventeenth-Century Dutch Printer's Device

Abstract

Abstract: This article offers a close reading of a seventeenth-century trademark deployed by the Rotterdam-based printers Henry (1633-1684) and Johanna Goddæus ( fl . 1660-1690). As part of this analysis, I show that that the central motif in the Goddæuses' trademark, which depicts the Gospel event known as the noli me tangere , is in an intertextual relationship with an earlier devotional woodcut by the German artist Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). This acknowledgement, I argue, enlivens a reading of the Goddæuses' trademark as a multimodal paratextual form, which: 1) visually foregrounds the three-dimensional and tactile qualities of the material text; 2) helps to advertise the empirical and experiential dimensions of the books that it brands; and 3) promotes the artisanal efficacy underpinning its owners' book-making practices.