Printers’ marks in which the pictorial embellishments partake of a
rustic nature, such as bits of landscape, seed-sowing, harvesting, and
horns of plenty, are numerous, and in many cases exceedingly pretty.
J. Roffet, Paris, 1549, employed the design of the seed-sower in several
of his Marks; and of about a dozen different Marks used at one time or
another by Jean De Tournes the first, Lyons, 1542, one of the most
successful is a clever one having for its central figure a sower; the
same idea, in a very crude form, was contemporaneously employed also by
De Laet, Antwerp. The Cornucopia, or horn of plenty, was a very
favourite emblem, and it appears in a manifold variety of designs,
sometimes with a Caduceus (the symbol of Mercury) which is held by two
clasped hands, as in the case of T. Orwin, London, 1596, in a cartouche
with the motto: “By wisdom peace, by peace plenty;” four of the eight
marks used by Chrestien Wéchel, Paris, 1522, differ from Orwin’s in
being surmounted by a winged Pegasus; and André Wéchel, of the same
city, 1535, employed one of the smaller devices of Chrestien, with
variations and enlargements of the same; in the Mark of J. Chouet,
Geneva, 1579, the caduceus is replaced by a serpent, the body of which
is formed into a figure 8; in that of Gislain Manilius, Ghent, the horns
appear above two seated figures. In each of the foregoing examples two
horns appear. Georg Ulricher von Andlau, Strassburg, 1529, used the
cornucopia, and in one of his Marks the figure is surrounded by an
elaborate array of fruit and vegetables; single horns appear also in the
clever and elaborate marks of R. Fouet, Paris, 1597, whose design was a
very slight deviation from that of J. De Bordeaux, Paris, 1567. The
oak-tree, sheltering a reaper and with the motto “Satis Quercus,” was
employed by George Cleray, Vannes, 1545; and the fruit of this tree--the
acorn--by E. Schultis, Lyons, 1491. The thistle appears on the marks of
Estienne Groulleau, Paris, 1547; the Rose on the more or less elaborate
designs of Gilles Corrozet, Paris, 1538; a rose-tree in full flower
occupies the centre of the beautiful mark of the first Mathieu
Guillemot, Paris, 1585; a solitary Rose-flower was the simple and
effective mark of Jean Dallier, Paris, 1545; and a flowering branch of
the same tree is one of the items on the charming little Mark on the
opposite page of Mathurin Breuille, Paris.
[Illustration: JACQUES ROFFET.