ABSTRACT
Iconography is particularly significant in the history of the recorder in the seventeenth century. At the York Conference, the subject was presented by Professor Eva Legêne of Indiana University and by Anthony Rowland-Jones. Legene discussed the various pastoral aspects of recorder iconography, which have many parallels in Baroque music. Rowland-Jones discussed other aspects of recorder iconography, but since the Conference has followed up the relationship between points made by Legene and the early pastoral ballets of Lully. The iconographic associations of the recorder are probably more varied and complex, and sometimes even contradictory, than they are for any other instruments. The photographic collection of the Warburg Institute at London University, which is catalogued by iconographic subjects, has some 200 illustrations under the heading 'Mercury and Argus', of which 78, mainly from the seventeenth century, show Mercury playing an instrument to lull Argus to sleep.
