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

upper center in red ink: LVNAE RADIIS NON MATVRESCIT BOTRVS.; center right in black ink: XXVIII.; animal in image numbered .1., in red ink; lower center in black/violet ink: Exultatio animae et corporis VINVM moderate potatum.Ecc[us].31. (“Wine drunk with moderation is the soul and joy of the body.” Ecclesiasticus 31:36) (Latin Vulgate Bible)
on facing page, upper center in brown ink: Nec Veneris, nec tu vini capiaris amore: / Vno namq[ue] modo vina Venusq[ue] nocent.; lower center in brown ink: Haec tua sunt, bona sunt, quia tu bonus ista creasti: / Nil nostrum est in eis, nisi quod peccamus, amantes / (Ordine neglecto), pro te, quod conditur, abs te (These things are thine and are good, for thou who did good didst create then. / Nothing of ours is in them save our sin in neglecting due order. / When in they stead we have love for that which by thee is created (St. Augustine, City of God against the Pagans(?), trans. Loeb Classical Library, 545)

Wikidata ID

Q64590852