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Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects

Joris Hoefnagel Netherlandish
1589
Not on view
Joris Hoefnagel is one of a few artists in the sixteenth century celebrated for their incredibly accurate and beautiful studies after nature. The symmetric composition of this bouquet might give it a gloss of artifice from a modern viewpoint, but conforms to the predominant taste that lasted well into the seventeenth century. The difference in scale of some of Hoefnagel’s flowers indicates that he used individual flower studies to form his bouquet - a fact that is supported by his reuse of separate motifs in other works. This particular bouquet of flowers is a very intimate work, not just because of its size, but also because of its intended purpose. The Latin inscription on the pedestal reveals that Hoefnagel made this drawing for his mother ‘as a monument of love’.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects
  • Artist: Joris Hoefnagel (Netherlandish, Antwerp 1542–1600 Vienna)
  • Date: 1589
  • Medium: Watercolor, gouache, and shell gold on vellum
  • Dimensions: Sheet: 4 5/8 x 3 11/16 in. (11.7 x 9.3 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Charles and Jessie Price, Jean A. Bonna, and Annette de la Renta Gifts, and The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2008
  • Object Number: 2008.110
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

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View of Poitiers from Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum
Joris Hoefnagel
Georg Braun
1572–94
View of Antwerp from Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Joris Hoefnagel Netherlandish, Hand-colored etching
View of Antwerp from Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum
Multiple artists/makers
1572–94
Insects and the Head of a Wind God, Joris Hoefnagel Netherlandish, Pen and brown ink, colored washes, gold paint, on vellum
Insects and the Head of a Wind God
Joris Hoefnagel
ca. 1590–1600
Allegory of the Spanish Tyranny, Joris Hoefnagel Netherlandish, Etching; printed from three plates on three sheets
Returned to lender
Allegory of the Spanish Tyranny
Joris Hoefnagel
1570
Otto, Count of Nassau and his Wife Adelheid van Vianen, Bernard van Orley Netherlandish, Pen and brown ink, watercolor over black chalk (recto); tracing in black chalk of the figures on the recto (verso)
Otto, Count of Nassau and his Wife Adelheid van Vianen
Bernard van Orley
1530–35

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