Sundial prints: Time to contemplate the Sorrows of Mary & Christ. Rare.

[Sundials] / [Devotional engraving]. Uren Wyser van het Lyden Cristi. O Mensch Wil tu voortaen… [Antwerp:] “Joan. van Sande,” s.a. [c. 1675-1713]. [9.2 x 6.4 cm], [1] f. engraving on vellum. Minor edge wear and minor staining, remnants of mounting on verso.
[With:]
[Sundials] / [Devotional engraving]. Uren Wyser van het Lyden Mariae. O Moeder die hier staet… [Antwerp:] s.n. [illegible], s.a. [17th or 18th century]. [9.7 x 6.9 cm], [1] f. engraving on laid paper, with contemporary hand-color. Minor edge wear.
 
 
Two rare Antwerp devotional engravings depicting the “sorrows” of the Virgin and of Christ in the form of wall-mounted (vertical) sundials. The prints are titled “The Hour Hand of the Sorrows of Mary” and “The Hour Hand of the Sorrows of Christ.” The version depicting Christ is printed on vellum, and the Marian version is printed on laid paper with contemporary hand-color.
 
The sundials are shown as if sheets tacked on the wall: Notice the fictive nails at the top corners and bottom middle of the print-within-a-print designs. The hours of the Marian sundial are labeled with her Sorrows, and the hours of the Christ dial are labeled with the Stations of the Cross. The sword in Mary’s heart and the lance in Christ’s side are meant to be the gnomons of the sundials. The dial furniture is typical of early modern sundials, but I am not sure that the markings are calibrated accurately enough to function (i.e., if one were to push a shadow-casting needle into the spots where Mary and Christ are ‘wounded’).
 
The texts discuss time in as a memento mori (e.g., “My hours pass with weeping and crying”), and at the foot of the Christ sundial print is a note about a 10,000-day indulgence granted by Pope Leo X (1475-1521).
 
The Christ print is signed by Johannes van den Sande, who was active in Antwerp c. 1675-1713. The signature on Marian sundial print is illegible, but it is more vernacular in execution and is likely an 18th-century production.
 
This sundial subject was a relatively popular in 17th- and 18th-century Antwerp, with several versions by the typical printmakers recorded in the Ruusbroec Institute of the University of Antwerp (Uurwijzer 1.1.1a-2.6.2a) and the Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (BMH dp992).  “Uren Wyser van het Lyden” prints are rarely encountered on the market today.
 
* Albert Waugh, Sundials: Their Theory and Construction.