Festive ephemera Word, image, and social prestige of Dutch illustrated epithalamia, 1600-1650

This dissertation examines Dutch illustrated epithalamic booklets produced between 1600 and 1650 as integrated cultural artefacts in which poetry, image, and material form worked together to construct the social meaning of marriage. Rather than treating these publications solely as literary texts or ephemeral commemorative objects, it argues that they functioned as performative media through which families articulated social prestige, negotiated civic and confessional identities, and publicly affirmed marital alliances.
Drawing on the corpus documented in José Bouman's Nederlandse gelegenheidsgedichten voor 1700 in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek te ’s-Gravenhage (1982), the dissertation analyses approximately 260 surviving illustrated epithalamia produced between 1600 and 1650. Combining approaches from art history, book history, literary studies, and material culture, it reconstructs the emergence of the illustrated vernacular epithalamium, examines the collaborative roles of patrons, poets, printers, publishers, and artists, and identifies thirty recurring visual strategies through which marriage was represented. Particular attention is given to the interaction between text and image, the circulation and reuse of printed material, and the relationship between epithalamic booklets and other forms of print and material culture, including songbooks, emblem books, and wedding medals.
The dissertation demonstrates that illustrated epithalamia were not merely records of weddings but active participants in the construction of social identity. Their imagery and material form transformed private ceremonies into public statements of honour, lineage, religious values, and cultural ambition. By repositioning these neglected objects within the broader history of early modern Dutch print culture, the study reveals how illustrated wedding booklets functioned as socially operative artefacts through which marriage, visual culture, and social prestige were articulated in the Dutch Republic.