Animalia Rationalia et Insecta (Ignis)

c. 1575/1590s

Joris Hoefnagel

Artist, Flemish, 1542 - 1600

Media Options

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On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G23

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    bound volume of 78 drawings (incl.title page) in watercolor and gold paint on parchment, alternating with pages of ink inscriptions on paper; 2 plates (III, IV) with gold border only (80 total decorated pages)

  • Credit Line

    Gift of Mrs. Lessing J. Rosenwald

  • Dimensions

    page size (approximate): 14.3 x 18.4 cm (5 5/8 x 7 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1987.20.5

Associated Artworks

See all 80 artworks

Plate 47: A Dragonfly (Banded Darter?), Grasshopper, Houseflies, a Carrion Beetle, a Flower Longhorn Beetle, and Other Insects

Joris Hoefnagel

1570

Plate 77: Dotted Bee Fly with a White Flower, a Mayfly, a Blue Weevil, and Other Insects

Joris Hoefnagel

1570

Plate 2: Maddalena and Enrico, the Children of Pedro González (Petrus Gonsalvus)

Joris Hoefnagel

1570

Artwork history & notes

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

Exhibition History

1982

  • Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector, NGA, 1982, no. 57a (plate I), repro.

  • 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.

1985

  • Albrecht Durer und die Tier- und Pflanzenstudien der Renaissance, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, 1985 (exh. cat. by Fritz Koreny), cat. 38.

1986

  • The Age of Bruegel, 1986-1987, NGA, The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, cat. by John Oliver Hand et al., no. 72

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.

2010

  • Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2010 - 2011, no. 32.

Bibliography

1960

  • Wegner, Wolfgang. Kurfürst Carl Theodor von der Pfalz als Kunstsammler: zur entstehung und gründungsgeschichte des Mannheimer kupferstich- und zeichnungskabinetts. Mannheim, 1960: 13.

1982

  • Fine, Ruth E. Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982, no. 57.

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).

1985

  • Kaufmann, Thomas Dacosta. "A Census of Drawings from the Holy Roman Empire, 1540-1680, in North American Collections" Central European History xviii, 1 (1985):4-13, 70-74, 88.

1986

  • Hand et al. 1986, 73.

1995

  • Hendrix, Lee. "Of hirsutes and insects: Joris Hoefnagel and the art of the wondrous." Word and Image. 11 (October-December 1995): 373-390.

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).

Inscriptions

Signed with monogram on title page

Markings

C.F.G.R. Schwerdt; Huth

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