Joannes Stradanus, called Giovanni Stradano
Flemish, 1523-1605
The Capture of a Swarm of Bees in a Farmyard
INV-1598
Joannes Stradanus, called Giovanni Stradano
Flemish, 1523-16051578/1605
The Capture of a Swarm of Bees in a Farmyard
Joannes Stradanus, called Giovanni Stradano Flemish, 1523-1605 →pen and ink drawingsprints and drawing
Date
1578/1605
Medium
Pen and brown ink and blue watercolor, with opaque white watercolor, over black chalk, on cream laid paper, incised with a stylus for transfer, laid down on cream laid paper
Dimensions
Primary support: 19.6 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 1/16 in.); Secondary support: 21 × 29.1 cm (8 5/16 × 11 1/2 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Primarily active in the court of Florence and patronized by the Medici, Johannes Stradanus designed tapestries depicting hunting, agriculture, and animal husbandry. Stradanus’s familiarity with these subjects is underscored in The Capture of a Swarm of Bees, in which he used remarkable precision to describe the removal of a beehive in the central foreground. His mastery of detail is especially evident in the protective headgear and clothing of the figures. A print based on this sheet forms part of a series of over 100 subjects illustrating various types of hunting and farm work.
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