ABSTRACT
The phrase cum privil, often inscribed at the bottom of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century prints, may seem to some ubiquitous and mysterious. In fact, only certain prints were allowed to display this privilege and its primary purpose was clear: to inform the public that a work had been protected against unsanctioned copying. It is the general parameter of such privileges, who applied for them and why, as well as their further significance that will be addressed in this essay. While a good deal of attention has been paid in recent scholarly literature to the privileges given to printmakers in Italy, less has been directed to their counterparts in the Dutch Republic. 1 This study attempts to fill part of that gap by examining the nature of the privileges most frequently issued to Dutch printmakers – those awarded by the States General between 1593 and 1650 – and by appending a chart listing the privileges issued to printmakers and mapmakers during this period (see Appendix). The documentation of the States General’s discussions of the requests of print-makers can be found recorded in brief among its resolutions and in longer form among its minutes and acts now housed in the Nationaal Archief in The Hague. 2
