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

Bibliography

1984

2017

2019

Inscriptions

Fish in image numbered .1., .2., .3., .4., .5., .6., .7., .8., .9., .10., .11., and .12. in red ink; center right in (gold?): XXIV.
Facing page: upper center in red/violet ink: Ego sum dominus Deus tuus, qui conturbo mare, et / Intumescunt fluctus ei[us] Dominus exercituum / nomen meum .Isa 51. (“But I am the Lord thy God, who trouble the sea, and the waves thereof swell; the Lord of hosts is my name.” Isaiah 51:15) (Latin Vulgate Bible); lower center in blue/black ink: Hoc mare magnum, et spaciosum, illic reptilia / quorum non est numerus: animalia pusilla / cum magnis, illic naves pertransibunt: ps:103. (“So is this great sea, which stretches wide its arms: there are creeping things without number: Creatures little and great. There the ships shall go.” Psalms 103:25 and 26) (Latin Vulgate Bible)

Wikidata ID

Q64590924