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

c.1575/1590s

Joris Hoefnagel

Artist, Flemish, 1542 - 1600

Media Options

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor and gold paint on parchment

  • 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

    1987.20.5.3

Associated Artworks

See all 79 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 40: Eight Spiders, Including a Cross Spider, with an Egg Sac

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

  • 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.

  • 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).

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

Upper center in brown ink: LAVDATE PVERI DOMINUM; center right in gold: II.; lower center in brown ink: LAVDATE NOMEN DOMINI.
Facing page:
Upper center in red ink: Ex ore Infantium, et lactantiu[m/n], perfecisti laudem. / propter Inimicos tuos. Pssal.8: (“Out of the mouths of infants and sucklings you have perfected praise because of your enemies.” Psalms 8:3) (Latin Vulgate Bible); lower center in black ink: Domine quid est HOMO quod Innotuisti ei? aut filius / hominis quia reputas eum? / HOMO vanitati similis factus est, dies eius sicut umbra pr[a]eterunt.ps:143. (“Lord, what is man, that you take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that you make account of him? Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passes away.” Psalms 143:3-4) (Latin Vulgate Bible)

Wikidata ID

Q64590766


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