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

1998

1999

2002

2010

Bibliography

1984

2017

2019

Inscriptions

Upper center in violet ink: Omni miraculo quod fit per Hominem maius miraculum est HOMO / visibilium omnium maximus est Mundus, Invisibilium DEVS / sed mundum esse co[n]spicimus, Deum esse Credimus; center right in gold: I; lower center in gold: HOMO natus de MVLIERE, brevi vivens tempore / Repletur multis miserys. Job.14 (“Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries.” Job 14:1) (Latin Vulgate Bible)
Facing page:
Upper center in red ink: Pronaq[ue] cum spectent Animalia caetera terram: / Os homini sublime dedit, caelumq[ue] tueri / Iussit, et erectos ad Sydera tollere vultus. (“While other animals look downward at the ground he [the maker of the world] gave human beings an upturned aspect, commanding them to look toward the skies, and, upright, to raise their face to the stars.” Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.84-86, adapted by Hoefnagel) (trans. Bass 2019, 240); middle center in black ink: PETRUS GONSALVS Alumnus REGIS GALLORVM / Ex insulis Canariae ortus: / Me Teneriffa tulit: villos sed Corpore toto / Sparsit opus mirum naturae: Gallia, mater / Altera, me puerum nutrivit adusque virilem / Aetatem: docuitque feros deponere mores, / Ingenuasq[ue] artes, linguamque sonare Latinam. / Contigit et forma praestanti munere Divum / Coniunx, et Thalami charissima pignora nostri. / Cernere naturae licet hinc tibi munera: nati / Quod referunt alii matrem formaq[ue] colore, / Ast alii patrem vestiti crine sequuntur. (“Tenerife bore me, but a miraculous work of nature strewed my whole body with hairs; France, my other mother, nurtured me from a boy up to a virile age, and taught me to cast aside uncivilized manners, to embrace the natural arts, and to speak the Latin tongue. A wife of surpassing beauty befell me by a gift of God, and from our marriage bed came the most beloved children. Here you may discern the munificence of nature: those born to us resemble their mother in form and coloring, yet likewise take after their father, as they too are cloaked in hair.”) (trans. Bass 2019, 239) / Comparuit Monachii boiorum A[o]: 1582:; lower center in red ink: Sed prior h[a]ec Hominis cura est, cognoscere terram / Et quae nunc miranda tulit Natura, notare.

Wikidata ID

Q64584535