WHY THE OWL?
This is our most frequently asked question, as our feathered friend is certainly among the most maligned creatures in European culture and especially in Early Modern art history.
Famously a nocturnal animal that is to this day associated with gloom and eeriness, the owl was already characterized by Pliny the Elder (23/24 - † 79) as a harbinger of misfortune and death (Nat. hist. X, 34f., 38f.). Equipped with extraordinary binocular night vision (owl eyes are actually tubes) and with camouflage plumage, the owl is a fierce and silent hunter in the dark.
Yet, the poor bird was ridiculed throughout the 16th and 17th century. Due to its often inferior vision in daylight, it became a symbolic animal of poor eyesight and sheer blindness, as in Gehard Schön's woodcut The Owl Hates the Light (1540) (fig. 1) :
"What use are sun, light, glasses to me/
as I, myself, don't want to see."
Fig. 1) Erhard Schön, The Owl Hates the Light, 1540, woodcut, 16,1 x 23,4 cm.
Illustration to a poem by Hans Sachs, Ein Ewl bey dem tag nit gesicht... wünscht uns Hans Sachs, Nuremberg, G. Wachter 1540, author's archive
There is, however, a more inspiring art story of the owl to be told that prompted us to make it part of our corporate identity. It is about the Flemish landscape painter Herri met de Bles (c. 1500 - † past 1560).
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If you look closely enough into his paintings, like the small Landscape with Lot and his Daughters in Warsaw (figs. 1-2), you will be able to discover a tiny owl placed somewhere in them every time.
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Fig. 2) Henri Bles, Lot and his Daughters / The Burning of Sodom, mid 16th century, tempera on oakwood, 33,5 x 45 cm, Warsaw, National Museum, M.Ob.600 MNW
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Fig. 3) Henri Bles, Lot and his Daughters / The Burning of Sodom (detail: the owl, with spreaded wings)
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From the Dutch art historiographer and painter Karel van Mander (1548-1606) we learn in his Schilder-Boek (1604) that met de Bles used these little owls as a signature for his works, that would indeed soon become synonymous with its author (he was known by "Il Civetta" - the Owl - in Italian inventories).
According to van Mander, finding the tiny owl transfixed art lovers so much that they could spend hours searching it in the paintings and that some made a game out of it, by placing bets on who of the beholders would be able to find it first.
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It is in this sense that we identify with de Bles' owl. To us, it is a symbol for the critical discernment of art and for the enjoyment thereof. It stands for the quest for authenticating and attributing paintings through tireless investigation, deep insight, and passionate research.
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In short: the tiny owl symbolizes the connoisseurship that we constantly strive to provide.