Like many other non-human animals, the swine and the ermine became subject from classical times onward to a range of moral and didactic appropriations in both literary and visual media. Most importantly for Pulter, the emblems of Combe, Cousteau, and Peacham illustrate just how deeply this material was embedded in the emblem-book tradition, and just how conversant Pulter was with this tradition. The accompanying oil paintings, by contrast, provide a bit of broader background, demonstrating the ermine’s embedment in more general modes of symbolic representation.

Image 1

Thomas Combe, The Theater of Fine Devices (London, 1614), sig. B6.

Image 2

Pierre Cousteau, Petri Costalii Pegma (Lyon, 1555), 176.

Image 3

William Segar (att.), The Ermine Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1585 (Hatfield House).

Image 4

Henry Peacham, Minerva Britanna (London, 1612), 75.

Image 5

Leonardo da Vinci, Lady with an Ermine, 1489-91 (Czartoryski Museum, Kraków, Poland).