2017-09-17, update 2020-08-25
Category: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder
Religion and Liberty
“Thought to be based on Gheeraert’s iconoclasm image”
Message to the Public Domain Review: You are using my comparison (from December 2008) without proper referencing. This was my first discovery of one of Henry Holiday’s allusions. This finding started my Snark hunt. I think that Public Domain Review should specify the source (my proposal).
From https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/the-art-of-hidden-faces-anthropomorphic-landscapes#17-0 (Snapshot 2019-10-10):
Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder’s allegory of iconoclasm, ca.1566 — Source.
The next picture is an illustration by Henry Holiday for Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. The face hidden in the darkness of the trees is thought to be based on Geheert’s iconoclasm image above.
The tenth of Henry Holiday’s original illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, 1876 — Source.
By the way, it’s not “the 10th” of Henry Holiday’s original illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark. Holiday contributed only nine (not ten) illustrations to The Hunting of the Snark and two illustrations for the book cover. The Ocean Chart probably had been made by a typesetter, not by Henry Holiday.
And there are various way’s to write Gheeraert’s name. 😉
For discussion: Reddit | Twitter | Flickr 2009
The Barrister’s Dream
Pigs and a Tuba
Help! I am seeing pigs!
In some of his illustrations to Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark, Henry Holiday alluded to The Image Breakers, a 16th century print made by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder. I see at least one of Holiday’s pigs in that print (spoiler) and also something which Henry Holiday could have turned into a Moritz bass tuba.
2019 is the year of the pig. Does that make me see pigs everywhere, or did Henry Holiday see that pig in Gheeraert’s print too?
Actually, I have to confess that I saw the pig already in 2009. But I didn’t mark it then:
The Birthday of Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder
Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder was born on 1636-01-19.
It were Henry Holiday's illustrations to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" which introduced Marcus Gheeraets' art to me.https://t.co/DhiHH0Usu0 pic.twitter.com/EkD8DIGXYt
— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) January 19, 2019
Could Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger have inspired Henry Holday, when Holiday designed the front cover to Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876)?https://t.co/qPI81p6vCk pic.twitter.com/DcIEufaM9w
— Goetz Kluge (@Bonnetmaker) January 20, 2019
Nose is a Nose is a Nose
A Snark article in the Knight Letter
(with lots of help from the editors Chris Morgan and Mark Burstein)
Source: Knight Letter (ISSN 0193-886X), Fall 2017, Number 99
When I wrote this article, I failed to mention that already in 1973 Elizabeth Sewell pointed out in The Field of Nonsense that a line in Carroll’s poem has a similarity to a line in a limerick by Edward Lear (MG058). I am sorry for not having mentioned that.
I posted my article online with permission of the Knight Letter editors. In the online copy, I fixed the wrong URL kl.snr.de. It’s kl.snrk.de. Furthermore, four additional images have been attached to my online version.

2018-02-09, update 2018-12-30: Reference to Elizabeth Sewell
My 1st Snark Trophy
I entered the Snark hunting grounds in December 2008. http://www.artandpopularculture.com/User:Goetzkluge could give you an idea where I was in 2010.
Illustrations by Henry Holiday (from The Hunting of the Snark, 1876) and Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (Allegory of Iconoclasts, aka The Image Breakers, around 1567): In the “mouth” of Gheeraerts’ “head” a praying priest is depicted. The shape of the priest also is visible in the “mouth” of Holiday’s vanishing “Baker”.
There is more — with acknowledgments to Mahendra Singh, to John Tufail and to the Internet.
Articles in this blog about Henry Holiday’s illustration to the chapter The Vanishing.
2017-08-28, updated: 2018-12-30
A Bonnet
The Dream Book of Mr. Pyridine
From Mahendra Singh’s The Dream Book of Mr. Pyridine
The Image Breakers
- [left]: The Banker after his encounter with the Bandersnatch, depicted in Henry Holiday’s illustration (woodcut by Joseph Swain) to the chapter The Banker’s Fate in Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark.
- [right]: a slightly horizontally compressed rendering of The Imagebreakers (1566-1568, aka Allegory of Iconoclasm), an etching by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder.