Insects and the Head of a Wind God
Joris Hoefnagel
ca. 1590–1600
Medium
Pen and brown ink, colored washes, gold paint, on vellum
Dimensions
4 3/4 x 6 13/16 in. (12 x 17.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. Darwin S. Morse, 1963
Accession Number
63.200.4
Tags
InsectsButterfliesDragonflies
About the Artist
Joris Hoefnagel · 1542–1600
Joris Hoefnagel, also known as Georg Hoefnagel, was born in 1542 in Antwerp to Jacob Hoefnagel, a prosperous diamond and luxury goods dealer, and Elisabeth Vezelaer, daughter of the Antwerp mint master. Intended for the family trade, he received a humanistic education, mastering languages, poetry, and music, but pursued art as a self-taught draftsman and miniaturist, receiving his first lessons fr...