Animalia Volatilia et Amphibia (Aier)

c. 1575/1590s

Joris Hoefnagel

Artist, Flemish, 1542 - 1600

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    1 vol: ill: 70 drawings (incl.title page) in watercolor and gold paint on parchment, alternating with pages of inscriptions in ink on laid paper; 2 plates (LXX and LXXI) with gold border only

  • 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

    1987.20.8

Associated Artworks

See all 72 artworks

Plate 14: Spoonbill Crane and Flamingo

Joris Hoefnagel

1570

Plate 29: Geese with Poppies and a Cyclamen

Joris Hoefnagel

1570

Plate 15: Common Crane and Bittern(?)

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

  • Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector, NGA, 1982, no. 57c (plate XXXVIII), repro.

  • 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.

2010

  • Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2010 - 2011, no. 35.

Bibliography

1960

  • Wegner, Wolfgang. Kurfürst Carl Theodor von der Pfalz als Kunstsammler: zur entstehung und gründungsgeschichte des Mannheimer kupferstich- und zeichnungskabinetts. Mannheim, 1960: 13.

1982

  • Fine, Ruth E. Lessing J. Rosenwald: Tribute to a Collector. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982, no. 57.

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).

1986

  • Hand et al. 1986, 73.

1995

  • Hendrix, Lee. "Of hirsutes and insects: Joris Hoefnagel and the art of the wondrous." Word and Image. 11 (October-December 1995): 373-390. [Mostly about Ignis.]

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

Signed with monogram on title page; one drawing signed and dated 1576 and another dated 1580

Markings

C.F.G.R. Schwerdt; Huth

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