Michał Heintze

The Reception of Sarbiewski's Poems in the Engravings of Pieter Soutman (ca. 1580–1657)

Michał Heintze

Adam Adam Mickiewicz University

The Reception of Sarbiewski's Poems in the Engravings of Pieter Soutman (ca. 1580–1657)

Keywords: Sarbiewski, Pieter Soutman, engravings

The topic I have chosen is a chapter of my dissertation on the reception of Sarbiewski. I was able to find four engravings by the Dutch engraver Pieter Claesz Soutman, for which the inscriptions were taken from Sarbiewski's poems. In doing so, the artist omitted that the author of the words he quoted was Sarbiewski. This is interesting in view of the fact that the engravings were most likely created before 1640, while the poet was still alive, in the Protestant city of Haarlem. In my speech, I would like to present the engravings I found and discuss their content in relation to Sarbiewski's poems. Claesz Soutmann lived in Warsaw for some time and was a painter to Sigismund III Vasa. It was probably there that he became acquainted with Sarbiewski's work. I would like to conclude my speech with an in-depth reflection on the reception of Sarbiewski in Protestant circles (a similar choice of topics as, for example, in the reception of Sarbiewski's poems into English).