Caspar Luyken - Kaart van de grietenij Weststellingwerf

A cartouche or cartouch is an oval design with a slightly convex surface, typically edged with ornamental scrollwork. It is used to hold a painted or low relief design. In Early Modern design, since the early 16th century, the cartouche is a scrolling frame device, derived originally from Italian cartoccia. Such cartouches are characteristically stretched, pierced and scrolling (illustration, left). Another cartouche figures prominently in the title page of Giorgio Vasari's Lives, framing a minor vignette with a device of pierced and scrolling papery cartoccia.

Casper and his father Luyken were extremely versatile and prolific artists. Jan and Casper Luyken worked for more than a hundred publishing houses and had an impressive number of patrons mainly to their versatility. Their production includes almost 4,500 prints, of which about one fourth are Casper’s work. The prints in the books they illustrated feature a great diversity of subjects and are often witty and full of details. Jan chose mostly pious and biblical subjects, whereas Casper depicted more worldly scenes. Casper Luyken was the eldest of the five children born to Jan Luyken and Maria de Ouden and the only one to reach adulthood. Casper learned the trade of illustrator from his father. His first illustrations appeared in the book Romeynschen Adelaer (1689) by Dirck Pietersz. Casper preferred working for his own clients rather than his father’s with one exception made for Jan ten Hoorn, his father’s biggest client. Together, they collaborated on only 36 prints. Casper probably left for Germany in 1699 to work for the engraver and art dealer Christoph Weigel in Nürnberg. In 1704, Casper returned to the Netherlands and died in 1708.