[Title page for] La passion de notre Seigneur ...

What you are looking at

This is an engraved title page for a religious work, *La Passion de Notre Seigneur* (The Passion of Our Lord), framed within a classical architectural order. The design features two fluted Corinthian columns supporting an entablature with a pediment, all rendered in elegant hatching typical of 16th- or 17th-century printmaking. The columns frame a central cartouche containing the full bibliographic text, suspended by a draped garland of fruits and leaves. Above the entablature, a triangular pediment contains a scene—too small to resolve clearly in reproduction—that appears to show a religious subject, possibly related to the Passion narrative. The whole composition sits on a solid plinth. The page shows age: foxing, staining, and edge damage are visible, consistent with a rare printed book from the early modern period. At the bottom, the Roman numerals read "A BASLE MDCLXXXIV" (1684).

The dancing

No figures are clearly visible or legible at the scale of this reproduction. The small scene in the pediment may contain human figures, but they are too distant to assess gesture, hold, or movement. This is a title page, not a narrative scene.

The dance depicted

No dance is depicted in this image. The catalogue record's assignment to 'dance' appears to reflect only the generic categorization of the holding collection ('Prints depicting dance') rather than the actual content of this particular page. The subject is religious—the Passion of Christ—and the treatment is architectural and emblematic. If the collection holds this item, it may be because other pages within the same bound volume contain dance imagery, but this page itself documents typography and printing practice, not movement.

How it was made

This is an engraving, recognizable from the characteristic fine parallel hatching (crosshatching) used to model form and shadow throughout the composition. The technique requires careful burring of copper plate, and the regularity of the line-work and precision of the architectural rendering suggest skilled professional execution. The date 1684 places it in the mature period of early modern printing in Basel, a major center of humanist and religious publishing. Such title pages circulated widely and were often collected separately from their bindings, which explains its current status as a discrete print.

About this work

This is an engraved title page for a religious text published in Basel in 1684. It documents the printing conventions of the period: the use of classical architectural framing to confer authority and elegance on the printed word, the integration of allegorical or narrative imagery into the decorative scheme, and the high craft standards of the Basel printing industry. The work belongs in a gallery about dance only if the collection's categorization reflects the contents of the full bound volume rather than this page alone. As an isolated print, it is a document of printing history and religious publishing rather than dance history.

How to look at it

Attend to the precision and regularity of the engraver's line-work, visible in the hatching of the columns and the delicate ornament of the capitals. Note how the cartouche is suspended and framed—a common device to draw the reader's eye to the text. The small scene in the pediment, though barely legible at this scale, was intended as an emblem or summary of the book's contents. This page was meant to be examined closely by a reader handling the physical book.

The artist

The artist is not recorded. The engraving was published in Basel, a city with a long tradition of fine printing and book arts. The style is consistent with professional Basel workshop production of the 1680s. Without a signature or attribution in the record, no specific engraver can be identified.

The period

In 1684, the court ballet of the 17th century was in decline in France, and religious drama and spectacle remained important in Catholic regions including Switzerland. The production of lavishly illustrated religious books was a major enterprise of the period. Title pages were sites of artistic display and often engraved by leading craftsmen. The classical architectural vocabulary seen here reflects the humanist revival of antiquity that had dominated European printing since the Renaissance.

Where it lives

The page is held in the New York Public Library's collection of prints depicting dance. Its presence there suggests it was either extracted from a larger volume or catalogued together with other prints from the same edition or holding. The collection classification may reflect the broader contents of a bound volume rather than the specific subject of this page.

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