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 black ink: Quo non protrabitur pellis robusta Leonis / Est vulpis iungenda: facit solertia vires.; upper center in violet ink: CAVDA DE VVLPE TESTATVR. (“A fox is given away by his tail.” Erasmus, Adages, 1.9.35) (trans. Bass 2019, 207); center right in black ink: XXVII.; animals in image numbered .1., .2., .3., and .4.; banderole/scroll at left in image in red ink: cu[m] vulpe vulpina[m] dum.; lower center in (gold?): ANNOSA VVLPES HAVD CAPITVR LAQVEO.
Facing page: upper center in red ink: Omnis caro sicut foenum verterascet: et sicut FOLIVM / fructificans in arbore viridi.Ecc[es]:14. (“All flesh shall fade as grass, and as the leaf that springs out on a green tree.” Ecclesiasticus 14:18) (Latin Vulgate Bible); middle center in black ink: Subdola, saeva, rapax, Inventrix mille malorum / Corpore quot pili, totidem sunt pectore fraudes.; lower center in brown ink: Dum lynces orcando fremunt: ursus f[a]erus uncat: Ast Lupus ipse ululat: frendet agrestis aper.

Wikidata ID

Q64590851