Summary in English

Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/40617 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Rikken, M.E. Title: Dieren verbeeld. Diervoorstellingen in tekeningen, prenten en schilderijen door kunstenaars uit de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tussen 1550 en 1630 Issue Date: 2016-06-23 Summary This study investigates the development between 1550 to 1630 of Southern Netherlandish animal imagery into an autonomous genre in relation to developments in natural history, networks of artists and scientists, and elite collecting practices in order to gain insight into the production, function, and meaning of animal imagery. The first chapter serves as the introduction and sets the parameters for the study. After supplying a definition of animal imagery, I argue these images can be defined as an independent genre. Specific aspects of the genre, namely its intermediality, relation to natural historical publications, and the close ties with collecting practices, make its development complex to analyze. The desire to gain insight into these aspects is the primary aim of this study. The three media in which animal imagery has been created: drawings, prints and paintings, are studied in tandem. The production of animal imagery and the study of natural history developed simultaneously, therefore I explore how artists exploited and dealt with natural historical knowledge derived from publications and how they in turn contributed to science. This study also analyzes the extent to which artists producing animal imagery studied exotic animals in menageries and in naturalia collections of their patrons. Animal imagery has been discussed in art historical literature and studies of the history of science. In the latter, animal imagery is mostly limited to illustrations in natural historical publications. Art historical studies that address animal imagery usually focus on the production of a specific artist. I explore the development of animal imagery from an art historical point of view, yet without neglecting the context of the history of science. By way of close visual analysis, I have reconstructed the working method of various artists. I have created databases to shed light on the circulation of motifs and analyzed these findings in order to establish how artists obtained natural historical knowledge. Two hubs for animal imagery have been identified, which structure this study: the importance of Antwerp in the second half of the sixteenth century is addressed first and the court in Prague in the first three decades of the seventeenth century is discussed subsequently. The second chapter deals with the circulation of motifs in animal drawings. Though previous scholars have not connected him with the production of animal imagery, this study demonstrates that the cartographer and humanist Abraham Ortelius should be considered as a central figure in its development. In fact, I argue he functioned as the instigator of the genre and played a pivotal role in the circulation of motifs. He knew many artists, as can also be deducted from his extant correspondence and album amicorum. Many artists who created animal imagery, 213 here called ‘animalists’, only began to do so after they came into contact with Ortelius. Even though most early animal drawings were produced outside Antwerp, they soon circulated in that city, thanks to Ortelius. Animal drawings by Lambert Lombard were, along with drawings by others, assembled around 1585 in an album that I suggest might have belonged to Ortelius. I propose Ludger tom Ring the Younger made a small animal piece for Ortelius. It is established that motifs in the Lombard album and in this piece by Tom Ring also occur in the work of other animalists working in Antwerp, such as Hans Verhagen, whose drawings, as I demonstrate, were also used later on. It appears that this circulation of motifs culminated in the 1570s with three animalists who not only borrowed motifs from older artists, but also exchanged motifs amongst each other. Maerten de Vos, who had often been promoted by Ortelius, created the first large scale animal series in 1572 and copied an elephant from Verhagen. Three animal albums by Hans Bol were created in Antwerp between 1572 and 1584. Joris Hoefnagel created four animal albums, probably on the instigation of Ortelius, who was in close contact with him. I demonstrate Bol and Hoefnagel had knowledge of the ombard album, Tom Ring’s panel, and erhagen’s drawings and also copied motifs from each other. In the third chapter I analyze the circulation of motifs in animal print series and argue that the animalists producing these print series came into contact with the animal drawings via Abraham Ortelius. They borrowed motifs for their own series, which were then frequently also circulated and exchanged in Antwerp. As such, the print series can be seen as the second phase in the development of animal imagery. The first Southern Netherlandish animal print series appeared in the late 1570s. Abraham de Bruyn invented and engraved two series with four-legged animals, one of which is dated 1578. Marcus Gheeraerts invented a bird series in ca. 1578 and a series with four-legged animals in 1583. It is established that the series by these artists show motifs and combinations of different animal species and animal positions that are highly evocative of motifs from Joris Hoefnagel’s albums. I argue that Ortelius formed the link between these artists. De Bruyn cooperated with good friends of Ortelius on several projects. Ortelius also probably introduced Gheeraerts to Hoefnagel in London in 1568. The well known printmaker Adriaen Collaert engraved and published print series with four legged animals, birds, and fish that bridge several decades, which show a clear development. Ortelius was a witness for the baptism of Collaert’s eldest daughter and it is likely that he pointed Collaert in the direction of Hoefnagel’s albums, from which the artist borrowed several motifs, as he did from albums by Hans Bol. Moreover, Collaert also used motifs from the early animal print series by De Bruyn and Gheeraerts. For his first series of ca. 1583 with four 214 Summary legged animals, Collaert relied heavily on earlier pictorial sources. The bird series followed suit, the first edition of which can be dated to around 1584 and the second to after 1597. Collaert’s fish series appeared after 1598 and is the most innovative of the three as he probably relied mostly on his own observations for it. In the 1590s younger printmakers who knew of the older albums because of family ties created their own animal print series. Nicolaes de Bruyn, cousin of Abraham de Bruyn, engraved a series with four-legged animals, birds, fish, and insects in 1594. His four-legged animal and bird series were old-fashioned and clearly indebted to the series by Collaert. De ruyn’s series with fish was innovative and even earlier than the one by Collaert. For his insect series he borrowed motifs from Bol and Collaert and his lay-out was based on series by Jacob Hoefnagel. Jacob was the son of Joris Hoefnagel and he had engraved a series in four volumes with insects after his father’s designs, which they published together in 1592 in Frankfurt. I argue that father and son Hoefnagel, in doing this, could (re)claim intellectual ownership of motifs that were used by other animalists. In the fourth chapter it is established that Ortelius not only instigated the exchange of animal motifs, but also acted as an intermediary between the animalists and natural historians. The first natural historical publications on animals appeared in the 1550s and were often embellished with many illustrations. The Antwerp publishing house of Christoffel Plantijn became an important centre for botanical treatises in the second half of the sixteenth century and I suggest Plantijn could have planned to use the animal drawings in the Libri Picturati collection for a publication on animals. Ortelius’ correspondence offers clues that lead to the hypothesis that he also had plans for an animal publication, an endeavor for which he already had gained similar experience by publishing his atlas of 1570. Ortelius corresponded with Carolus Clusius about issues related to natural history and sent natural historical publications to correspondents. He also collected natural historical specimen, which he asked artists to depict in order to document and disseminate his knowledge. As such, it appears that Ortelius passed on natural historical knowledge to Joris Hoefnagel and perhaps Hans Bol, who themselves were not in direct contact with natural historians. Many Antwerp animalists – especially those in close contact with Ortelius – dealt deliberately with natural historical knowledge in their albums and print series. Joris Hoefnagel copied many motifs from illustrations in Conrad Gessner’s publications and he gave account of the order of the animals discussed in these publications. Hans Bol, however, ordered the animals in his albums according to storytelling. In some cases Hoefnagel adjusted the material he borrowed from natural historical sources, although he also made mistakes in his depictions. Marcus Gheeraerts not only copied motifs from different natural historical 215 publications, but also contributed to the field. He was the first to combine ungulates, thereby creating a new ordering principle. Nicolaes de Bruyn also displayed a discerning attitude toward his natural historical sources. When it came to depicting insects, Antwerp animalists were more advanced than natural

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