This publication is dedicated to 17th-century illustrated French thesis prints from a historical and theoretical perspective. Important artists such as Charles LeBrun, Claude Vignon, and Claude Mellan are among the designers of the elaborate copperplate engravings commissioned for public defense ceremonies. Artistic practices of copying, variation, and reuse of prints and representation through art are brought into focus in three object studies. These offer comprehensive interpretations of often complex allegories, considering Baroque rhetorics, emblematics, political iconography, intertextuality, and ephemeral practices. The significance of quotation and allegorical polyvalence, as first theorized by Walter Benjamin, in Early Modern printmaking and other visual arts are discussed in a theoretical reflection on artistic genres.

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Konrad Krcal, studied art history in Vienna and Göttingen, research stays in Paris, Wolfenbüttel and Munich, winning candidate of the Wolfgang Ratjen Award 2022