Plate 54: Sea Cucumbers, Sea Urchins, Starfish, a Sea Nettle, a "Sea Hare," and Other Marine Life, 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

1987.20.7.55

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: TOTVS ECHINVS ASPER. (“A sea urchin is rough all over.” Erasmus, _Adages_, 2.9.59) (trans. Bass 2019, 221); echinoderms in image numbered .1., .2., .3., .4., .5., .6., .7., .8., .9., .10., .11, .12., .13., .14., .15., .16., .20., .21., .22., and .23., in red ink; center right in brown ink: LIV.
Facing page: upper center in blue ink: .1. / Iste licet digitos testudines pungat acuta: / Cortice deposito, mollis Echinus erit.; lower center in red/violet ink: Vive tibi tecumq[ue] habita nec grandia tentes; / Effugit immodicas, parvula puppis AQVAS (“Live for yourself and reside with yourself, and do not try great things. The small ship flees unruly waters.” Labeled as Ovid in Comenius, _Lexicon atriale_, 473-74) (trans. Bass 2019, 221)

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).