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Lot Essay
Like his father Joris (1542-1601), and very much inspired by his style, technique and subject-matter, Jacob Hoefnagel made his name with cabinet miniatures of great refinement (Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., 2017). Even fewer survive by the son than by the father: nine, of which the two most famous ones, at the Musée du Louvre, Paris (inv. P 372), and the British Museum, London (inv. 1997,0712.56), are a collaboration between the two artists (ibid., pp. 184-187, no. C 21 C 22, ill., pp. 483-484, nos. B 1, B2, ill.).
The present work can be dated well after Joris’s death, more precisely from the time after he became ‘Kammermaler’ at Rudolf II’s court in Prague in 1602. The Emperor’s fondness of erotic subjects is well-known. A typical example is the famous anecdote depicted in the present work, taken from Pliny’s Naturalis historia (XXXV): the painter Apelles is asked by Alexander the Great to paint his mistress, the beautiful Campaspe, with whom the artist falls in love; the Emperor then decides to keep the painting and present Campaspe to him. Indeed, Rudolf commissioned a painting of the subject from Joos van Winghe, a second version of a picture which that Netherlandish artist had made during his years in Frankfurt. Now both in the Gemäldegalerie at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. 1677, 1686; see Karl Schütz in Prag um 1600. Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Kaiser Rudolfs II., exhib. cat., Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1988, II, no. 598, ill.), the compositions may have been known to Hoefnagel and could have inspired him for his miniature; in particular the version made for the collector in Frankfurt (where Hoefnagel lived in the early 1590s), in which the nude is shown with her back turned to us, and the scene is crowned by Fama, comes close to the Hoefnagel's miniature. Rudolf II commissioned at least one work from Hoefnagel that was inspired by a painting in his collection (Morgan Library and Museum, New York, inv. 1998.22, related to a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder; see Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., 2017, pp. 489-490, no. B 6, ill.). Likewise, the Emperor may have commissioned the present miniature from the artist as a work referring to a painting already in his possession.
It seems the miniature was not fully finished, and the architectural background appears to be by another hand, as discussed by Thea Vignau-Wilberg (op. cit., 2017, pp. 487-488). The signature and date at upper left, too, were probably added later; both Joris and Jacob were in the habit of signing in a cartouche such as the one in the present work. In any case, the date 1631 must be a mistake; more probably, the miniature dates from 1611, just before the death of Rudolf II. In the description of the figures, and in particular Campaspe’s body, and details of the interior, the miniature is a beautiful demonstration of the younger Hoefnagel’s art and an illustration of the sophisticated and sensual taste characteristic of the Rudolfine court.
The present work can be dated well after Joris’s death, more precisely from the time after he became ‘Kammermaler’ at Rudolf II’s court in Prague in 1602. The Emperor’s fondness of erotic subjects is well-known. A typical example is the famous anecdote depicted in the present work, taken from Pliny’s Naturalis historia (XXXV): the painter Apelles is asked by Alexander the Great to paint his mistress, the beautiful Campaspe, with whom the artist falls in love; the Emperor then decides to keep the painting and present Campaspe to him. Indeed, Rudolf commissioned a painting of the subject from Joos van Winghe, a second version of a picture which that Netherlandish artist had made during his years in Frankfurt. Now both in the Gemäldegalerie at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. 1677, 1686; see Karl Schütz in Prag um 1600. Kunst und Kultur am Hofe Kaiser Rudolfs II., exhib. cat., Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 1988, II, no. 598, ill.), the compositions may have been known to Hoefnagel and could have inspired him for his miniature; in particular the version made for the collector in Frankfurt (where Hoefnagel lived in the early 1590s), in which the nude is shown with her back turned to us, and the scene is crowned by Fama, comes close to the Hoefnagel's miniature. Rudolf II commissioned at least one work from Hoefnagel that was inspired by a painting in his collection (Morgan Library and Museum, New York, inv. 1998.22, related to a painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder; see Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., 2017, pp. 489-490, no. B 6, ill.). Likewise, the Emperor may have commissioned the present miniature from the artist as a work referring to a painting already in his possession.
It seems the miniature was not fully finished, and the architectural background appears to be by another hand, as discussed by Thea Vignau-Wilberg (op. cit., 2017, pp. 487-488). The signature and date at upper left, too, were probably added later; both Joris and Jacob were in the habit of signing in a cartouche such as the one in the present work. In any case, the date 1631 must be a mistake; more probably, the miniature dates from 1611, just before the death of Rudolf II. In the description of the figures, and in particular Campaspe’s body, and details of the interior, the miniature is a beautiful demonstration of the younger Hoefnagel’s art and an illustration of the sophisticated and sensual taste characteristic of the Rudolfine court.