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: SVPER ASPIDEM ET BASILISCVM AMBVLABIS / et conculcabis leonem et Draconem.ps.90 (“You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk and you shall trample under foot the lion and the dragon.” Psalms 90:13) (Latin Vulgate Bible); center right in brown ink: LX.; animals in image numbered .1., .2., .3., and .4., in red ink; lower center in blue ink: Et semper recto lapsurus limite CENCHRIS / Pluribus ille notis variatam tingitur aluum.
Facing page: upper center in brown ink: Sibilaq[ue] effundens cunctas terrentia pestes, / Ante venena nocens, late sibi submovet omne / vulgus, et in vacua regnat Basiliscus arena.; lower center in brown ink: Ne Intuearis vinum quando flavescit, cum splenduerit / In vitro color eius: Ingredit[ur] blande, sed in novissimo / mordebit ut Coluber, et sicut REGVLVS venena diffundet. / proverb.23. (“Look not upon the wine when it is yellow, when the color thereof shines in the glass, it goes in pleasantly. But in the end it will bite like a snake and will spread abroad poison like a basilisk.” Proverbs 23:31-32) (Latin Vulgate Bible)

Wikidata ID

Q64590890