Inscription
Upper center in red ink: DERIDET EQVVM ET ASCENSOREM SVVM. (“She scorns the horse and his rider.” Job 39:18) (Latin Vulgate Bible); center right in gold: .I.; birds in image numbered .1. and .2., in red ink; lower center in brown ink: Gloriabit me bestia agri dracones , et STRVTHIONES, quia dedi in / deserto aquas , flumina In Invio vt darem potum populo meo. Isa 43: (“The beast of the field will honor me, the dragons and the ostriches: because I give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen.” Isaiah 43:20) (Latin Vulgate Bible)
Facing page: Upper center in black (?) ink: Nunc sturnos inopes, fringillarumq[ue]
qu[a]erlas / Audit, et arguto passere vernat ager.; lower center in brown ink: Erit Terra Impiorum Cubile. draconum / et pascua STRVTIONVM. Isa: 34. (“It will be a habitation of dragons and the pasture of ostriches.” Isaiah 34:13) (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.
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).
- 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).
Related Content
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- Results layout:
Associated Records
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- Animalia Volatilia et Amphibia (Aier)
- 1987.20.8
-
- Title Page
- 1987.20.8.1
-
- Plate 9: Two Pheasants with Fruiting Plants
- 1987.20.8.10
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- Plate 10: Gray Crowned Crane and Helmeted Curassow
- 1987.20.8.11
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- Plate 12: Pair of Wood Grouse with a Melon and Pears
- 1987.20.8.13
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- Plate 13: Two Curly Gray Chickens (Silkie Chickens?)
- 1987.20.8.14
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- Plate 14: Spoonbill Crane and Flamingo
- 1987.20.8.15
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- Plate 15: Common Crane and Bittern(?)
- 1987.20.8.16
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- Plate 18: Heron and Stork
- 1987.20.8.19
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- Plate 19: Two Great Egrets with Green Breeding Masks
- 1987.20.8.20
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- Plate 20: A Plover with Four Other Birds
- 1987.20.8.21
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- Plate 22: Two White Pelicans with a Sycamore Fig
- 1987.20.8.23
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- Plate 24: Two Swans, a Kingfisher, and a Bullfinch
- 1987.20.8.25
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- Plate 26: Cormorant and Coot
- 1987.20.8.27
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- Plate 2: Two Eagles
- 1987.20.8.3
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- Plate 29: Geese with Poppies and a Cyclamen
- 1987.20.8.30
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- Plate 31: Duck, Merganser, and Three Goldfinches
- 1987.20.8.32
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- Plate 3: Two Hawks
- 1987.20.8.4
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- Plate 40: European Bee-Eater and Exotic Chicken
- 1987.20.8.41
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- Plate 44: Godwit(?) and Sandpipers with Two Gourds
- 1987.20.8.45
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- Plate 45: Spotted Nutcracker and Shore Birds
- 1987.20.8.46
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- Plate 47: Shore Birds with a Perching Bird
- 1987.20.8.48
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- Plate 50: An Avocet with Two Other Birds
- 1987.20.8.51
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- Plate 59: Curlew and Crow with Horse Skull
- 1987.20.8.60
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- Plate 60: Magpie, Crow, and Goldfinch
- 1987.20.8.61
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- Plate 64: Two Partridges, a Wren, and Other Birds
- 1987.20.8.65
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- Plate 65: Thrushes and Other Birds
- 1987.20.8.66
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- Plate 66: Doves and Pigeons
- 1987.20.8.67
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- Plate 67: Two Doves beneath a Gourd and Apples
- 1987.20.8.68
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- Plate 68: A Ptarmigan, Swallows, and Other Birds
- 1987.20.8.69
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- Plate 70: Empty Oval
- 1987.20.8.71
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- Plate 72: Empty Oval
- 1987.20.8.72
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- Plate 7: Four Birds of Prey on a Wooden Frame
- 1987.20.8.8
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- Plate 8: Bearded Vulture with Two Birds of Prey
- 1987.20.8.9