Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects
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
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Charles and Jessie Price, Jean A. Bonna, and Annette de la Renta Gifts, and The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 2008
Accession Number
2008.110
Tags
Art Historical Context
Joris Hoefnagel’s *Still Life with Flowers, a Snail and Insects* (1589) is a exquisite miniature painted in watercolor, gouache, and shell gold on vellum. Measuring just under five inches tall, the work presents delicate blooms, a crawling snail, and finely detailed butterflies and insects arranged with remarkable precision. Hoefnagel, a Flemish artist active at European courts, specialized in such intimate natural-history studies that bridged art and scientific observation during the late Renaissance. Created at a time when collectors avidly documented the natural world, the painting reflect...
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...