Plate 18: Two Butterflies and a Moth with a Damselfly, Two Ants, and Four Other Insects, c.1575/1590s

Not on View

series Title

Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis): Plate XVIII

Medium

watercolor and silver 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

1987.20.5.19

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 red ink: CICADA CICADAE CHARA FORMICAE FORMICA.; insects in image numbered .1., .2., .3., .4., .5., .6., .7., and .8., in red ink; center right in brown ink: .XVIII.; lower center in brown ink: CITIVS QVAM FORMICAE, PAPAVER.
Facing page:
Upper center in red ink: Formica populus infirmus, qui pr[a]eparat / In messe cibum sibi pro.30.(“The ants, a feeble people, which provide themselves food in the harvest.” Proverbs 30:25) (Latin Vulgate Bible); lower center in red ink: Aestate[m] meminit, brumae formica sequentis: / Colligit idcirco provida messe cibum. A:S. (Stockelius?) (“The ant remembers the winter that follows summer, and therefore providently gathers food at harvest time.”) (trans. Vignau-Wilberg 1994, 69)

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

A.S.W. Rosenbach Gallery
Brentano, Karl August von
Ellis, Frederick Startridge
Hagen, Heinrich Secretarius
Rosenwald, Lessing J., Mrs.
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.

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).