On the cover of the only English-language work to discuss early modern alba amicorum to date, June Schlueter’s much-needed The Album Amicorum and the London of Shakespeare’s Time (London 2011), we see a group of figures on horseback and on foot, which the author plausibly identifies as a company of travelling players:

It is clear from the attributes the riders bear that they represent the Four Elements, and the ‘birds’ on foot, Night and Day. In her book Professor Schlueter tentatively suggests that these figures may be a group of travelling English comedians in Germany, and in the context of the Hartmann album, perhaps performing in Marburg in 1605/6.

Since the publication of June Schlueter’s book I have come across three further examples of this design, two contemporary, and one rather later (1647). The Müllegg album, which has much the same lifespan as Hartmann’s (1596-1612), spreads the image across a double page,

but the Pusch album miniature, is painted on a single page, and dated 1603.

Towards the end of our period another example is to be found in the album of Johann Bernhard Winterbach with the six characters named in Latin — but now the image is reversed:

The very close similarity of the three earlier miniatures suggests they were all copied from the same model, perhaps an unknown late 16C or c.1600 print.