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 brown ink: .Serpente Ciconia pullos / Nutrit, et Inventa per devia rura Lacerta: / Illi eadem sumptis, quaerunt animalia Pennis. (“The stork feeds its young with the snake and with the lizard found in distant country. When they are fledged, they seek out the same animals [on the lizard].)” (trans. Vignau-Wilberg 1994, 73).; right center in brown/black ink: LII.; animals in image numbered .1., in red ink; lower center in blue/black ink: Versicolor coluber, ranas, miserasq[ue] Lacertas / Devorat, In sylvis foera fortior, ore minorem / Dilacerat. (“The colorful snake devours frogs and wretched lizards; in the woods the wild beast, being stronger, tears the smaller beast to shreds.”) (trans. Vignau-Wilberg 1994, 64)
Facing page: upper center in brown ink: Sed cunctas species animantum nemo notavit:/ Atq[ue] sonos ideo dicere quis poterit?; lower center in violet ink: Auxilium meum a Domino: qui fecit / Coelum et TERRAM. ps.120. (“My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalms 120:2) (Latin Vulgate Bible)

Wikidata ID

Q64590879