Venationes ferarum, avium, piscium (Hunts of wild animals, birds and fish). Plate 30. Deer attack...

This print is the work of three major Flemish figures of the late 16th century: the original artist Jan Van der Straet (a.k.a. Stradanus), the engraver Jan Collaert II; and the publisher Philips Galle. The success of Van der Straet's cartoons for a hunting series to decorate the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, near Florence (1566-77), led to the leading Flemish publishers Heronymus Cock, and subsequently Galle, to commission related engravings in the 1570s and 1580s. (Galle also engraved/published other works by Van der Straet, including his <em>Crucifixion</em>, in Te Papa's collection).

These proved so popular that in 1596 Galle published the ambitious, 105 plate volume <em>Venationes, ferarum, arium, piscium </em>(Hunts of wild animals, birds and fish), engaging several engravers including Collaert, all based on original drawings by the prolific Van der Straet.  Bird hunts form an important sub-theme. The volume was republished by Philips Galle's son, Johannes, in 1634.

This harrowing scene depicts lynxes pouncing on, and destroying a herd of deer. The Renaissance Latin inscription immediately below the image has been kindly translated by Tim Smith, Victoria University of Wellington: 'The lynx, or lupus cervarius for some, is a cruel and voracious animal, spotty in the covering of its pelt. The lynx is hostile to this species of deer, and leaps at the terrified deer from the tree, devouring it with its terrible mouth'.

Dr Mark Stocker           Curator, Historical International Art            March 2017