Plate 14: A "Sea Ape," Two Scorpion Fish, and Two Other Fish, c.1575/1590s

Not on View

series Title

Animalia Aqvatilia et Cochiliata (Aqva)

Medium

watercolor and gold paint 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

1987.20.7.15

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 black ink: PRO PERCA SCORPIVM; creatures in image numbered .1., .2, .3., .4., and .5. in red ink: center right in brown ink: XIV.; lower center in (gold?): Increpuit MARE RVBRVM et exiccatum est et deduxit / eos in abyssis sicut in deserto .ps:105. (“He rebuked the Red Sea, and it was dried up; and he led them through the depths, as in a wilderness.” Psalms 105:9) (Latin Vulgate Bible)
Facing page: upper center in violet (green?) ink: Terribilis Dominus, et magnus vehementer / et mirabilis potentia eius .Ecc:43. (“The Lord is terrible, and exceeding great, and his power is admirable.” Ecclesiasticus 43:31) (Latin Vulgate Bible); lower center in red (green?) ink: Transivimus per ignem et AQVAM et / Eduxit nos in refrigerium ps.54. (“We have passed through fire and water, and you have brought us out into a refreshment.” Psalms 65:12) (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 fu¨r Ethnologie 11 (1879): 155, note 1.

Associated Names

Rosenwald, Lessing J., Mrs.

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.

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.

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).