Venationes ferarum, avium, piscium (Hunts of wild animals, birds and fish). Plate 12. Fight betwe...

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, avium, 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 print depicts a horrifying scene in an a circus pit, and is described in the Renaissance Latin inscription below the image, kindly translated by Tim Smith, Victoria University of Wellington: 'Noblemen watch the spectacle before them in the circus. A ferocious lion tears apart wild animals with tooth and claw, and casts down the wolves  [who are lying dead]. After a struggle, it overcomes a bull. All the while, a terrified bear trembles in fear.' 

See: Chris Michaelides, http://blogs.bl.uk/european/2015/09/joannes-stradanus-and-his-hunting-scenes.html

Dr Mark Stocker     Curator, Historical International Art      March 2017