Seashells and view of Cadiz

This very finely worked miniature belongs to the third part – devoted to ‘fish’ – of the four-volume zoological work that Hoefnagel compiled between 1575 and 1582 in Prague for Emperor Rudolf II. The other volumes are devoted to insects, quadrupeds and reptiles, and birds. In 1675, Joachim von Sandrart became the first to mention the highly renowned work; its whereabouts were long unknown until it resurfaced in 1946 and entered the collection of the National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.) as a part of the Lessing Rosenwald collection. It is not known when the sixteen leaves in Berlin and the two in Weimar were removed from their original context. The view of Cadiz in the background very probably derives from a study that Hoefnaegel completed during his journey to Spain in 1556 and 1567. The seashells in the foreground are numbered so that their correct name can be given in the text.