Venationes ferarum, avium, piscium (Hunts of wild animals, birds and fish). Plate 37: Deer hunt w...

This print is very likely 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 (attributed to him but not signed); 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.

The Renaissance Latin inscription below the image describes preparations before the hunt, so the hounds know who and what to chase. It is kindly translated by Tim Smith, Victoria University of Wellington: 'Sent by the French king, the hunter seeks out a great quantity of deer dung. He smells it and gives the hounds the dung excreted by the younger deer. Having got the scent of it, the dogs learn how to recognise the ages of the deer'. Maintaining the tone of excretion, note the activities of the hound in the right-hand corner.

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

Dr Mark Stocker     Curator, Historical International Art      March 2017