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Home>Collection>Plate 69: Nine Bees and Other Insects

Inscription

Upper center in blue/violet ink: Ingentes animos angusto in pectore versant. (“[They] harbor great spirits in tiny breasts.” Virgil, _Georgics_, 4.83, 4.184) (trans. Bass 2019, 3) / VBI MEL IBI FEL. (“There is no honey without bile.”) (trans. Bass 2019, 4); insects in image numbered .1., in red ink; center right in (gold?): LXIX.; lower center in red/orange ink: VBI VBER IBI TVBER. (“There is no rose without thorns.”) (trans. Bass 2019, 4); lower center in black ink: Omnibus una quies operum labor omnibus unus. (“They all have one job, and one respite from labor.” Virgil, _Georgics_, 4.83, 4.184) (trans. Bass 2019, 4)
Facing page:
Upper center in red ink: Non laudes virum in specie sua: Neq[ue] spernas hominem in / visu suo. Brevis in volatilibus est Apis: et initium / dulcoris habet fructus eius. Eccl: 11: (“Praise not a man for his beauty, neither despise a man for his look. The bee is small among flying things, but her fruit has the chiefest sweetness.” Ecclesiasticus 11:2-3) (Latin Vulgate Bible); center in black ink: Dum puer alveolo furatur mella Cupido, / Furanti digitum cuspide fixit APIS. / Sic etiam nobis brevis et peritura voluptas, / Quam petimus tristi mixta dolore nocet.; lower center in red ink: In apes ne fervas, ne malum feras.; lower center in blue/black ink: Illis ira modum supra est [lesaeque?] venenum / Morsibus inspirant, et spicula caeca relinquunt / Affixa venis, animasq[ue] in vulnere ponunt.

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 fu¨r Ethnologie 11 (1879): 155, note 1.

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. Hendrix, Lee. Joris Hoefnagel and the Four Elements: a Study in Sixteenth-Century Nature Painting. Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1984 (series).dissertation, Princeton University, 1984 (series).
2017
Vignau-Wilberg, Thea. Joris and Jacob Hoefnagel: Art and Science around 1600. Berlin, 2017: no. A6 (for series).
2019
Bass, Marisa Ann. Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt. Princeton, 2019 (for series).

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