We were at the Library of Congress' Main Reading Room this week to consult Wilco C. Poortman's 1986 "Bijbel en prent" as we try to learn more about the history of our unusual 1710 Halma Scheit's Bible. While scanning the table of contents looking for the Scheits chapter, we noticed a chapter in Vol 1 covering our 1657 "Van Sichem Bible" – one of the most profusely illustrated Bibles of its era featuring more than 1,200 woodcuts. Of course, all three volumes of Poortman's book are in Dutch, so we quickly pulled up Gemini and had it read and translate the section on the Van Sichem Bible into English in near-realtime just from our cellphone camera while we sat there in the Main Reading Room. We also asked it to identify any important or interesting discoveries or statements about the Bible in addition to translating the entirety of the section.
On p. 134, Gemini flagged this absolutely fascinating statement: "The 15 prints of Revelation Christoffel van Sichem cut after Albrecht Dürer." While catalog entries of this Bible often mention it contains recreations of Durer works, we had never seen information as to which specific woodcuts were supposedly the Durer copies. Armed with this new information, later that afternoon we consulted the Van Sichem Bible in person, but given that we don't speak any Dutch and that the Bible is more than 1,700 pages, how could we locate these prints within? All we had to do was ask Gemini "In the 1657 Paets Bible, which pages is Revelation on and what is the Dutch heading?" Instantly, Gemini returned that it occupies pages 445-468 of the New Testament and even told us the signatures Pp1r-Qq6v and to look for "Openbaring" in the heading and within seconds we had the images!
Amazingly, when showed Gemini a cellphone image of one of the "after Durers," Gemini instantly recognized both van Sichem's signature AND Durer's iconic monogram that van Sichem apparently chose to include in his after Durers. This means that once we have completed digitizing the entire book, we should be able to scan it with Gemini to identify any other after Durers scattered elsewhere in the work!
Van Sichem's woodcuts in this Bible include copies of many famous works, such as the engraving below at left after Lucas van Leyden's "Adam and Eve after the Expulsion".
Most notably, this is his copy of Durer's Four Horsemen from The Apocalypse in Revelation:
Below are a few of the "after Durer" van Sichem prints from Revelation:
