Animalia Volatilia et Amphibia (Aier)
c. 1575/1590s
Artist, Flemish, 1542 - 1600
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West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G23
Artwork overview
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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
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
page size (approximate): 14.3 x 18.4 cm (5 5/8 x 7 1/4 in.)
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Accession
1987.20.8
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Series Title
(see separate records for series 1-72)
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