Plate 1: Elephant with Insects, c.1575/1590s

Not on View

series Title

Plate 1: Elephant with Insects

Medium

watercolor 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

1987.20.6.2

Artists / Makers

Joris Hoefnagel (artist) Flemish, 1542 - 1600

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

upper center in red ink: ELEPHANTVS INDICVS NON CVRAT CVLICES (“The Indian elephant is scarcely troubled by gnats.” Erasmus, _Adages_, 1.10.66) (trans. Bass 2019, 195); center right in (gold?): .I.; elephant in image numbered .1., in red ink.
Facing page: upper center in brown ink: Quam magnifica sunt opera tua Domine? Omnia / In sapientia fecisti, Impleta est terra possessione tua ps.103. (“O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all: the earth is full of your riches.” Psalms 103:24) (Latin Vulgate Bible); middle center in black ink: Tristantur rapto parto laetantur honore / Corda Elephantum studiis obnoxia nostris. / Vsque adeo Ingenium mite est Elephantibus, alter / Fraterno alterius damno ut succurrat amore. (“The delicate hearts of the elephants are saddened by booty plundered and made happy by the honor of our affections.” Natale Conti, _De venatione_, 13v-14r (1581) (trans. Bass 2019, 196) / Omnibus est spatium longum, longissima vitae / Tempora, viginti bis dicunt vinere lustra.(“The life span of the elephants can be as long as two hundred years.”) (trans. Bass 2019, 196); lower center in brown ink: Et Barrus barrit (“And the elephant roars.” Anonymous, _Elegia de Philomela_, lines 53-54) (trans. Bass 2019, 195-96): cervi glocitant et onagri: / Ast taurus mugit: et celer hinnit equis.

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

Rosenwald, Lessing J., Mrs.

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.

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).