Title Page, c. 1575/1580

Not on View

series Title

Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Title Page)

Medium

watercolor with gold on parchment

Dimensions

page size (approximate): 14.3 x 18.4 cm (5 5/8 x 7 1/4 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Lessing J. Rosenwald

Accession Number

1987.20.5.1

Artists / Makers

Joris Hoefnagel (artist) Flemish, 1542 - 1600

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Inscription

Upper center in cartouche in gold: IGNIS; center right in black ink: ANIMALIA / RATIONALIA / ET / INSECTA; center left in gold: G; center right in gold: HF; lower center in black ink: Qui fecit Angelos spiritus suos: / Et ministros suos Ignem urentem. ("Who made your angels spirits: and your ministers a burning fire." Psalms 103:4) (Latin Vulgate Bible)

Provenance

Emperor Rudolf II of Austria?[1]; Secretarius Heinrich Hagen, Vienna, 1611.[2] Count Emanuel Maria Joseph von Arco, Munich, 1751.[3] Graf von Seinsheim, canon of Salzburg and Speyer, 1753. Master stonemason Rüpfel, Munich, c. 1830. Joseph Anton Niggl [1792 - 1842], Markt Tölz. Karl August von Brentano [1817 - 1896], Augsburg. (sale, Rudolph Weigel, 28 October 1861, no. 2220-a-d]; (Frederick Startridge Ellis [active 1860 - 1885], London; formerly identified as F. S. Eliot)[3]; Henry Huth [1815 - 1878], London; by descent to his son, Alfred Henry Huth [1850 - 1910], London; (sale, Sotheby's London, 12 June 1913, no. 3722); (William Wesley & Son, London); Charles Francis George Richard Schwerdt, Old Alresford House, Hampshire (his sale, Sotheby's London, 15 July 1946, no. 2216); (The Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia); Lessing J. Rosenwald, Jenkintown; given to Edith Goodkind Rosenwald, Jenkintown; gift to NGA, 1987.

[1] Although Van Mander claims the series was commissioned and purchased by Rudolf, this is impossible as dates scattered throughout volumes pre-date Hoefnagel's contact with Rudolf. The series does not appear in Rudolf's inventory, though he is likely to have owned it at one time as many copies from the volumes appear in his natural history collections, now in Vienna (see Bass 2020, 12).

[2] Vignau-Wilberg 2017, 98 without documentation.
[3]Wolfgang Wegner, Kurfurst Carl Theodor von der Pfalz als Kunstsammler, Mannheim, 1960: 13.
[4] Ellis was a book dealer who frequently sold to Huth and wrote the catalogue of Huth's collection. He started his own business just a year before The Four Elements appeared at Weigel. Ellis is correctly identified by M. Bartels, "Ueber abnorme Behaarung beim Menschen," Zeitschrift für Ethnologie 11 (1879): 155, note 1.

Associated Names

A.S.W. Rosenbach Gallery
Arco, Emanuel Maria Joseph von Count
Brentano, Karl August von
Ellis, Frederick Startridge
Habsburg, Rudolph II Holy Roman Emperor
Hagen, Heinrich Secretarius
Huth, Alfred Henry
Huth, Henry
Niggl, Joseph Anton
Rosenwald, Lessing J., Mrs.
Rüpfel
Schwerdt, Charles Francis George Richard
Seinsheim Graf von
Sotheby's, London
Sotheby's, London
Weigel, Rudolph
William Wesley & Son

Exhibition History

1982: Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540 - 1680, The Art Museum, Princeton University, National Gallery of Art, Museum of Art, Carnegie Insitute, Pittsburgh (exh. cat. by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, no. 56.

1998: A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1998, no. 76.

1999: From Botany to Bouquets: Flowers in Northern Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1999, no. 45, as Iris from Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis).

2002: Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe l'Oeil Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2002-2003, no. 30, as Ignis (Animalia Rationalia et Insecta) Plate 47.

Bibliography

1984: Hendrix, Lee. Joris Hoefnagel and the Four Elements: a Study in Sixteenth-Century Nature Painting. Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1984 (series).