Leseprobe

147 Dionysius Andreas Freher (1649–1728) was the designer of the intricate images that were printed in the first edition of Böhme’s collected works in English, published between 1764 and 1781 in memory of the theologian William Law (the so-called Law edition), under the editorial guidance of George Ward and Thomas Langcake. These images, and especially the series of “pop-ups” known as The Three Tables , were added to this edition without acknowl- edgement of the authorship. Indeed, they have some- times been incorrectly attributed to Law himself. Some texts by Freher, printed anonymously in this edition, were also thought to be Law’s own writings. The images contributed greatly to the success of this edition. The poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), who owned a copy of it, was 1 Dionysius Andreas Freher, “God All in All,” in: The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher , so-called Law Edition (Eds. George Ward and Thomas Langcake), London 1764–1781, Copperplate engraving, handcoloured, Embassy of the Free Mind, Collection Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica fascinated by the pictures. The journalist and diarist Henry Crabb Robinson (1775–1867) wrote that William Blake (1757–1827), too, had admired them. 1 It is easy to see why the bold design and striking colouring of the Tables would have made an impres- sion on Blake, whose own reception of Böhme may have been very extensive, not least owing to Freher’s innovative, visual representations (Fig. 1). 2 Freher’s original achievement as a Böhme interpreter thus enjoyed a mixed fate. The images he designed won renown, while their author remained mostly unknown. The main reason is that Freher did not seek to publish his works during his lifetime, but they circulated exclusively in manuscript form. Freher was a native of Nuremberg and arrived in London around the end of the seventeenth century. C e c i l i a Mu r a t o r i THE V I SUAL REPRESENTAT ION OF BÖHME ’ S PH I LOSOPHY D IONYS I US ANDREAS F REHER AND THE LAW ED I T ION OF BÖHME ’ S WORKS