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Law and Order in Rubens's Wolf and Fox Hunt
Susan KoslowNote to Reader: The authoritative text, with illustrations is published in The Art Bulletin, LXXVIII, Dec. 1996, 680-706
In 1986, Arnout Balis published the first comprehensive account of Rubens's hunting pictures in the series Corpus Rubenianum series, laying the foundation for all future studies of the subject. With regard to A Wolf and Fox Hunt in New York (Fig. 1),Balis resolved the problematic provenance of this very important picture, Rubens's first monumental hunting scene. He demonstrated that it can be identified with the picture that the English ambassador at The Hague, Sir Dudley Carleton, was negotiating to buy in 1616-17, but failed to win when the duke of Aarschot, Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg, outbid him. The importance of this finding will become clear below. Moreover, Balis put to rest the view that the animals in the picture were painted by Frans Snyders, and he pointed to "the high quality of execution" throughout. The picture has been universally admired, with the wolves in particular eliciting high praise. Rooses' observation that they are "superb" can be taken as representative.The one significant issue concerning the Wolf and Fox Hunt that Balis did not address is the subject of the picture, the hunt itself. He did not comment on its singularity, nor have others. Contrary to the impression the picture makes, the scene does not show actual hunting practice, as documented in cynegetic literature. According to these texts, wolves and foxes are pursued separately, and different techniques are used in each case. A visual tradition cannot be identified as Rubens's source either; depictions of wolf hunts and depictions of fox hunts exist, but no picture shows them combined. Furthermore, it is not only the hunt that is problematic, but, in a certain sense, the animals as well. The ones that Rubens selects are scavengers, which anyone may hunt, rather than noble creatures, such as the stag or the boar, whose chase is the prerogative of the nobility. The lowliness of the wolf and the fox would seem to disqualify them from featuring in any major composition, particularly in the very painting Rubens was using to promote himself as the latter-day heir of van Orley and Stradanus, the sixteenth-century masters of monumental hunting imagery. Since there can be no question regarding Rubens's conversance with hunting theory and practice and with the iconography of hunts, we must assume that his departure from custom was deliberate and carried out for considered reasons. What these may have been is the principal concern of this study. I argue that Rubens turned to the hunting legislation proposed by the archdukes in 1613 for his subject and that this choice had a political aspect. The share that the science of natural history played in shaping Rubens's ideas about the wolf and the fox--a question hitherto overlooked--is considered here for the first time. Additional issues in this study include Rubens's pictorial sources, and how the Hunt's original significance may have been amplified by events in the 1630s.
The Wolf and the Fox in Natural-History Texts
Much of the effect of the picture rests on the vivid depiction of the wolves and foxes, whose defensive stratagems and ferocious expressions are entirely convincing and appear to be based on observations from life. Yet it is unlikely that participation in an actual hunt accounts for this verism, since the tumultuous circumstances of a chase are clearly ill suited for detailed studies; at best, only an impression could have been gained from witnessing such an event. Rather, Rubens may have availed himself of living or dead specimens obtained from the environs of Antwerp, where wolves and foxes abounded. If the animal was captured alive and held in a pen or cage, its physical attributes, movements, demeanor, and passions, in particular rage and fear, could have been observed in safety and at length. Alternatively, a dead animal for a limited time or stuffed might have been instructive as a model; and a live dog could have served for the wolf, since the dog (Canis familiaris), a domesticated descendant of the wolf (Canis lupus), has the same physical structure as its ancestor. In the absence of any surviving preparatory sketches for the animals, however, these scenarios must remain conjectural. Moreover, the graphic depiction of the wolves and foxes cannot be explained merely by positing the use of models. In Rubens's working process, life drawing, undertaken to clarify a pose or another significant feature of a figure, occurred after a composition was well advanced. Rubens, therefore, had a mental image already in mind before resorting to empirical observation. In this case, various types of literature--in particular, scientific treatises and hunting manuals--as well as other works of art were formative in shaping Rubens's vision of the wild beasts.The type of scientific literature that Rubens consulted comes under the heading of natural history, one of whose chief concerns is the appearance, habits, and behavior of animals. Among the ancient authors whom Rubens probably read in this field are Pliny, Aelian, and Oppian, while Conrad Gesner (1516-1565) and Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522-1605) were the sixteenth-century naturalists he seems to have been most familiar with. Indeed, in 1613, he purchased Aldrovandi's three-volume Ornithologia and his volumes on insects and aquatic creatures (De Insectis; De Piscibus), while in 1617 he rounded out the set with the purchase of the two- volume study on quadrupeds (De Quadrupedibus). From Gesner's five-volume Historia Animalium he acquired, in 1613 from the same dealer, Balthasar Moretus, the treatise on serpents (De Serpentibus). The content of natural-history literature has great range, and includes empirical observations, traditional lore, ethical and religious commentary, pictorial traditions, symbolic meanings, and medicinal qualities. The early modern texts in particular are encyclopedic, enlarging the scope of the material far beyond that addressed in classical works.
To judge from his various pictures in which animals are central to the subject, such as Cupid Supplicating Jupiter (Princeton), Ganymede (Vienna), the Head of the Medusa (Vienna), and the Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt (Munich), Rubens employs the textual sources selectively and critically. In certain instances, an ekphrastic passage or phrase appears to spark his imagination, evoking vivid imagery. On other occasions, it is a text's scientific datum or ethical content that draws his attention. And when an erroneous view is propounded, he may disregard it or even show its falsity. The latter response accounts for an otherwise puzzling feature of the larger wolf's stance in the Wolf and Fox Hunt, the turn of its head.
The posture of this riveting figure is a new invention, unlike that of the smaller wolf, which repeats the spaniel's pose in Rubens's portrait Giancarlo Doria (Fig. 2), dating from around 1606. Standing upright to face the charging knight, the larger wolf turns to defend itself against an attack from behind (Fig. 3). It holds the threatening partisan with one paw to steady itself, and furiously bites down on the gleaming blade. To reach the weapon the wolf rotates its head an astonishing 180 degrees, a movement that the animal could not actually perform but that Rubens portrays plausibly--so plausibly, in fact, that it has not been mentioned as aberrant. The pose conveys the impression that the wolf is able to turn its head with ease, having extreme flexibility in the neck. This runs counter to traditional knowledge regarding the wolf, which held that its neck was rigid and, consequently, incapable of movement.This belief is encountered in classical literature in the work of the third-century naturalist Aelian, who observes that "the neck of a wolf is short and compressed; the animal is thus incapable of turning but always looks straight ahead, and if it wants to look back at any time, it turns its whole body." The same notion is found in the Middle Ages, in the Bestiary, which states that the wolf's "neck is never able to turn backward." Later naturalists endorsed the traditional view, despite its evident falsity, as Edward Topsell's 1607 translation of Conrad Gesner's text indicates: "The neck of a wolf stands on a straight bone that cannot well bend. Therefore . . . the wolf must turn round about when he looks backwards. The same neck is short, which argueth a treacherous nature." Despite the overwhelming authority of tradition, a critical voice appears in Jean de Clamorgan's treatise on hunting wolves, foxes, and badgers, published in 1566. Although largely a plagiarism of Gaston Phoebus's classic hunting manual, de Clamorgan's text offers novel observations, including a critique of the conventional view concerning the wolf's neck. He writes: "Those who claim that the neck of a wolf is a single bone and does not bend are to be scorned. Like the necks of other animals, the wolf's is composed of vertebrae; moreover, we can see [with our own eyes] that it turns it from side to side. However, it is true that its neck is very large, massive, sinewy, fleshy, and very strong."
There is no evidence that Rubens knew de Clamorgan's work, but the French author was probably not unique in pointing out the earlier error, and Rubens may have learned about it from other sources or from firsthand experience. In any case, his critical reading of scientific literature seems to have been an important element in his creative process, contributing in no small measure to his invention of the large wolf's pose and to the selection of an earlier schema for the small wolf.
The characterization of wolves in Oppian's Cynegetica, or in sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century texts based on it such as Gesner's History of Animals, seems to have framed Rubens's conception of the appearance and behavior of the wolves perhaps even more than empirical observation. Thus, he does not portray the indigenous gray wolf that roamed Brabant, as seen in Pieter Brueghel the Younger's The Good Shepherd Attacked by a Wolf (Fig. 4), but the creature that Oppian identifies as the golden wolf, living beyond the "snow-clad heights of Taurus." The golden wolf is "beautiful of aspect . . . brilliant with abundant hair . . . armed with mouth of bronze, infinite in might. Many a time he pierces amain the enduring bronze, many a time he pierces stone or the iron spear." Early modern scientific texts kept Oppian's content, but discarded its poetic form; for example, Topsell writes that the wolf is "able with his mouth and teeth to bite asunder not only stones but brass and iron." Whether Rubens consulted the later prose accounts or the original, the resulting image is astonishing and unlike any previously represented. The large wolf seizes the hunter's pike in its powerful jaws, biting down on the blade with its great fangs in a final desperate defense. Rubens intensifies the painfulness of this heroic act, causing the spectator to shudder empathetically, by showing the animal's tongue pressed against the sharp edge of the blade.Rubens may well have selected Oppian's text on account of its dramatic content and its vivid description, but his choice may also rest on the emphasis that Oppian places on the wolf's distinguishing feature, its dentition. This emphasis is in keeping with the general opinion that the animal's cruel, ravenous, and rapacious character is embodied in its fangs. Natural historians refer to the wolf as "saw-toothed," a classification that Oppian himself uses. He puts the wolf with the hyena, calling them both "bloody beasts." Aelian, Oppian's contemporary, likewise characterizes the wolf as a saw-toothed animal, along with the dog, the lion, and the leopard.
In addition to the fang, the claw is recognized as a distinctive feature of the wolf by natural historians, who generally mention these two physical traits together. Aelian, for instance, remarks that the fangs and the claws of the wolf--features that it shares with the bear, the leopard, and the lion--make it bold. Aelian also indicates that fangs and claws are the wolf's natural weapons, a point we shall return to below. When Oppian refers to the wolf as "saw-toothed" and "bloody" he alludes, of course, to the fact that it is carnivorous. Though this could be taken as a mere statement of fact, natural historians, poets, and philosophers drew ethical lessons from it. Writing a century earlier than Aelian, Plutarch raised a moral issue in this regard, whose influence would reach all the way to the nineteenth century, where it would culminate with Tennyson's famous line, "Nature, red in tooth and claw." When discussing the morality of eating flesh, Plutarch argues that man was not made to eat meat, because he lacks ''sharp nails" and "jagged teeth"; moreover, man does not "fall upon an animal and eat it still living," as does a wolf. Thus man, who lacks both fang and claw, is by nature a vegetarian and is not instinctually compelled to kill. Plutarch elaborates these ideas fully in the Moralia, for instance, in "The Eating of Flesh I," one of the most influential essays on the ethical dimensions of vegetarianism.
Thus codified by Plutarch, the topos of tooth and claw is synonymous with cruel elemental forces, causing survival to depend on violent killing and on the consumption of raw flesh. The humane traits of reason, ethics, and social life have no role to play in this scheme. An example of the topos in seventeenth-century scientific literature is found in John Ray's Historia Plantarum. Ray, whom Martin Rudwick characterizes as "perhaps the greatest naturalist of the age," wrote: "certainly man by nature was never made to be a carnivorous creature; nor is he arm'd at all for prey and rapin, with gag'd and pointed teeth and crooked claws, sharpened to rend and tear." This passage was well known among Ray's contemporaries, as John Evelyn's citation in Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets (1699) attests. Evelyn, who espoused vegetarianism for reasons of ethics and health but was not himself a strict follower of the regimen, shared Ray's point of view.
Rubens gives full play to the savagery that tradition accorded the wolf, as we saw in regard to the large wolf and which is no less evident in the smaller one. Indeed, the smaller beast displays its claws, which the stance of the larger wolf does not allow. Rubens portrays them in considerable detail, showing the pointed nail embedded in a thick pad, and with comparable accuracy he depicts the wolf's saw-toothed maw. The special prominence that Rubens accords to these features, whose proximity to the picture plane causes the viewer instinctively to retreat to a safer zone, is more than merely a matter of characterizing the wolf according to its distinctive traits. These features intimate another consequential issue, that nature (or providence or God) endows each animal with the weaponry it needs to protect itself. Rubens illustrates this point when he shows the wolf biting down on the blade. The fang is the wolf's natural weapon, which it wields against the arms that man crafts. In this clash, fierce though it may be, man will ultimately triumph; Rubens leaves no doubt about human ascendancy, which is founded on the exclusive possession of the rational faculty. This anthropocentric position maintains that God granted man stewardship of his creation with the expectation that he would wield power wisely, benevolently, without injustice or abuse.
In this scheme, there is no question regarding man's preeminence over the beasts, but what of the beasts vis-à-vis each other? Natural historians appear to have placed the wolf over the fox, without formalizing its position on the scale of being. Gesner, for instance, observes that "wolves are enemies to foxes, because they are flesh devouring" and because "wolves feed on the flesh of foxes." The wolf is thus the predator of the fox, which in turn is a predator of small, vulnerable animals, such as barnyard fowl. In the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries, this type of relationship was cast in terms of contrary forces, which were said to account for both harmony and conflict in the cosmos; some named these forces antipathy and sympathy, others love and hate, or friendship and enmity. These forces acted not only on man and animals, but also obtained for plants and even minerals. Erasmus gave wide currency to this idea in the colloquy Sympathy. A passage from Gervase Markham's 1611 treatise on estate management shows the application of this notion to hunting. He writes: "Hunting is then a curious search or conquest of one beast over another, pursued by a natural instinct of enmity, and accomplished by the diversities and distinction of smells only, wherein Nature, equally dividing her cunning, giveth both to the offender and offended strange knowedge both of offence and safety." In view of the date when this was written and the currency of its ideas, it seems fair to suggest that Rubens and his audience may well have regarded the Wolf and Fox Hunt in similar terms.Finally, mention should be made of certain beliefs regarding the wolf that were widely reported in natural-history texts and hunting manuals and that permeated popular custom. According to these sources, the wolf renders a man mute by merely gazing at him. de Clamorgan attributes this power to the wolf's venomous sight and breath, which the hunting authority Jacques du Fouilloux traces to a diet of poisonous snakes and vermin. Because the venom lodged in the fang, contact with it was deadly. However, this lethal property also made it a curative, according to homeopathic medical theory and practice. A wolf's tooth was a popular amulet, as de Clamorgan writes and as seventeenth-century Antwerp inventories attest, protecting its wearer, often a young child, against toothaches, teething trouble, and other ailments. The baby girl seated on her mother's lap in Marten de Vos's 1577 Portrait of the Anselme Family holds a rattle with just such a tooth affixed to it (Fig. 5).
On account of the wolf's baleful traits a wolf hunt was considered exceptionally dangerous for the hunter and for the dogs involved. Since most dogs were said to be afraid to take part, particularly when the quarry was an old wolf, only the boldest ones were selected. The breeds recommended in cynegetic manuals are running hounds, bloodhounds, and greyhounds. However, according to one author, Gaston Phoebus, the greyhound had to be enticed into this hunt. It seems that the dog's reluctance arose from its unique vulnerability to the wolf, which instinctively went for the hound's slender legs and sensitive muzzle, and crushed its skull with its powerful jaws. Except for the bloodhound which bites into the wolf's back, the pack in the Wolf and Fox Hunt consists of greyhounds, which have driven the quarry to bay, allowing the hunters to close in for the kill. Their prominence, while reflecting actual hunting practice according to the literature, also depends on their social identity, their status as the preeminent dogs of the nobility.
Unlike the wolves, the three foxes in the Hunt are not pictured in sensational poses. One lies dead, another has been thrown on its side, apparently struck down by the horse, while the third prepares to flee. Similarly, their expressions lack the high rhetoric of the wolves, showing no sign of having been inspired by ekphrastic texts. The ancients, in fact, are reticent about the fox: Pliny and Plutarch are silent; Aelian mentions it in passing, mainly in connection with other animals; Oppian alone briefly describes its habits and nature: "the most cunning of all beasts of the field . . . warlike of heart and wise." Thus, lacking a vivid textual description of the fox's appearance, Rubens turned to nature itself for a model. Specimens were probably examined for the color and texture of the pelt and for physiognomic traits, such as the snout and the teeth, since these features in particular have the ring of truth. The foxes' behavior as well seems to be based on close observation from live models, especially that of the fox on the left that hides its tail between its legs, appearing to cower in fear (Fig. 6). While this act seems symptomatic of panic, in fact it is a defensive stratagem. Although authorities differed on specifics, they agreed that the fox deliberately soiled itself to elude capture. Phoebus, for instance, wrote: "if he [the fox] is hunted in open country, he shits on himself so that the greyhounds will leave him alone, because of the foul smell he has." Gesner, on the other hand, explained the action somewhat differently:
When the dogs are pressed neer unto him [the fox], and are ready to bite him, he striketh his tail betwixt his legs, and with his own urine wetteth the same, and so instantly striketh it into the Dogs mouths, whereof when they have tasted, so many of them as it toucheth will commonly leave off and follow no farther.
Rubens illustrates this action with characteristic decorum, intimating but not actually showing the fox relieving itself. Within Rubens's circle the motif gained currency, as the Fox Hunts by Paul de Vos in Antwerp (Fig. 7), Ghent, and Kassel attest. The fox's behavior pointedly emphasizes the creature's defining trait--wiliness--which the action of the stricken fox on the right of Rubens's picture instances as well. This animal strains to sink its fangs into the hind hock of the dappled steed in retaliation for the injury it has suffered, and, more important, to panic the horse so as tomake its escape in the ensuing tumult. With his attention focused on the wolves, the rider is ignorant of his perilous circumstance, and could even be faulted for a lack of circumspection regarding the fox, whose craftiness makes it a foe no less dangerous than the wolf. Whether Rubens intended this incident to carry allegorical instruction aimed at his noble clientele is not clear, but that the fox evoked quite specific moral and political associations deriving from its role in the beast epic Roman de Renard, as well as in fable literature, cannot be doubted.
In the fables of antiquity, the cunning fox is unnamed; however, in medieval beast epics not only is the creature named, it is also anthropomorphized, first in the Latin poem Ysengrimus (mid-twelfth century), written for a monastic audience in the Netherlands, and later in the French text Roman de Renard, known in no less than twenty-eight versions, composed between 1174 and 1250. In France, the popularity of the romance was so great that the very name of the character, Renard, supplanted goupil as the term for fox. Also in vogue in the Netherlands by the fourteenth century, Reynaert de Vos is among the earliest secular texts published there, appearing in incunabula printed at Gouda (1479) and Antwerp (1487). As late as the seventeenth century, the text was still widely read in the Netherlands, where, in 1642, it was listed among titles appropriate for use in Antwerp schools.
The Roman de Renard is a moralizing narrative that takes place in the feudal realm ruled by King Noble the Lion. The cunning, thieving Lord Renard, who commits an array of nefarious deeds against a multitude of small and large creatures, is brought to court to stand trial for having violated the wife of his most powerful adversary, Ysengrin the wolf. By artful manipulative arguments Renard saves himself from condemnation, tricking even the king into believing that he is repentant for his misdeeds when he swears to undertake a pilgrimage to make amends. As soon as Renart is at a safe distance from court, however, he renounces his oath and returns to his former habits.
In both Renard and Ysengrin, as well as in a host of minor characters, such as Chanticleer the cock, Coward the hare, and Bruin the bear, feudal aristocracy recognized types within their own milieu. While Ysengrin exemplifies the brawny, predatory lord whose transgressions are driven by rapacious greed, Renard is subtle and treacherous, a nobleman whose lies are veiled by a certain pathos. What advantages him most of all isan unerring gift for discerning his opponent's pyschology and adroitly manipulating its weaknesses to benefit himself. In this respect Renard is the consummate politician. This identification is recalled in that most famous of political handbooks, Machiavelli's The Prince (1514). Machiavelli advises the prince to take instruction from the lion and the fox. The fox, he observes, cannot defend itself against the wolf and needs a lion for protection; in turn the lion requires the aid of a fox to identify traps laid for its capture. "Those who simply act like lions are stupid. So it follows that a prudent ruler cannot and must not honor his word when it places him at a disadvantage," that is, he must model his behavior after the crafty fox: "those who have known best how to imitate the fox have come off the best."
Besides these references, two additional citations regarding the significance of the fox should be noted. They are pertinent because they appear in texts of considerable importance to the art of the period. In the widely read Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura (1584), the sixteenth-century painter and theoretician Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo refers to the fox in a chapter treating the symbolism of animals. Listed in alphabetical order, each creature is identified with one or two traits; for the fox these are cunning and fraud. A similar enumeration appears in Karel van Mander's Van de Wtbeeldinghen der Figuren (1604), appended to his Het Schilder-Boeck. Van Mander selects maliciousness as the fox's distinctive quality. He writes: "The fox signifies maliciousness or the malicious man. A fox's pelt sewn together with a lion's skin signifies deception and power."
Though not counted among the canonical works of natural- history literature, the texts considered in the preceding paragraphs nevertheless overlap with that body of knowledge, and help to illuminate the significance of the fox in Rubens's picture. With lively strokes they draw a vivid portrait of the animal's moral physiognomy, which agrees remarkably with the painting's representation; cunning, deceit, treachery and malice are clearly figured in the fox.
Hunting the Wolf and Fox according to Cynegetic Manuals
Roy Modus et Royne Racio (1354-79), the earliest cynegetic manual to give an account of wolf hunting, identifies three methods: "par forche," pursuing the wolf with dogs; "a bisonner," trapping the wolf with a net; and "aus aguilles," concealing needles in a carcass. Four additional techniques are identified by Phoebus in Le Livre de Chasse (1387-91): ropes, pit traps, noose traps, and poison. Only par force hunting was recreational and considered a sport by the aristocracy. The other methods were proper to trappers locally authorized to control wolves, as was the case in Germany and Scotland. Later manuals merely repeat these methods for catching and killing wolves. For example, de Clamorgan closely follows Phoebus's tract. Where the texts differ is in the section dealing with the natural history of the wolf; de Clamorgan updates his account by including contemporary references. Incidentally, this is the only manual devoted exclusively to the wolf. Since the hunt portrayed in Rubens's picture is par force, this particular method will be explained, wth reference to Phoebus's text.
Phoebus instructs the seigneur to have a horse or other large animal killed and quartered, and its parts dragged along to leave a scent trail to the carcass, which is left in the forest. In the morning, a hunter is sent to check the remains, and if wolves are still present, to observe them from the safety of a tree. Once the wolves withdraw, the hunter returns to the seigneur to report his findings. Next a bloodhound is led around the perimeter of the forest to determine whether the wolves are still there. To encourage the wolves to remain in the forest, a live animal is tethered to a tree as bait. After the wolves kill it and remain with the carrion for two nights, the nobleman is advised to gather his people, including hunters and farmers, and to prepare them for the chase, which occurs on the following day at daybreak. Phoebus then describes two methods of encirclement, which is the next step in the hunt. In the first instance, bloodhounds are led to the trails where the wolves are accustomed to run in order to cut off their flight, and hunters light fires and talk and sing loudly. The second method is the "titre," a formation of men and dogs in a semicircle. "Then the hunter should ride close to his dogs and blow the horn to encourage and embolden them, since many fear wolves." The wolf is finally taken when a pair of greyhounds confronts it, while two or three couples close in from behind. De Clamorgan remarks that a wolf hunt can be a lengthy chase, lasting as long as eight or ten hours.
For a description of par force fox hunting we must turn again to Phoebus, whose treatise is more detailed than any other in this regard. William Twiti, in The Art of Hunting (1327), for instance, remarks that the fox hunt is pursued according to the rules of venery, but no specifics are given. Phoebus, on the other hand, not only describes the hunt, but also gives particulars about the fox's habitat. According to him, the fox lives in various terrains, including forests, thickets, vineyards, warrens, near hamlets and villages, and on the outskirts of cities. On the night before the hunt the lairs are stopped to prevent the fox from entering them. Then, in the morning, the hunters with their greyhounds assemble downwind. Once the fox begins to run, a third of the hounds are released; as they tire, they are spelled. Finally, when the fox is sighted, the entire pack is set loose "for a very good chase."
The Iconography of the Wolf Hunt and the Fox Hunt
Before the last third of the sixteenth century, the wolf hunt and the fox hunt were seldom depicted, and then only in small format. Fine examples are found in manuscripts, such as MS Fr. 616, the splendid Gaston Phoebus of around 1400, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (Figs. 8, 9). In 1567, the situation changed, when Cosimo de' Medici commissioned Stradanus to design hunting tapestries for Poggio a Caiano, the Medici villa outside Florence. Completed in 1578, the twenty-eight tapestries, included a chambre of four pieces, showing various kinds of wolf hunts--with nets, toils, traps, and shotgun--and a single one depicting the hunt of the fox and the hare. The latter, which is lacking, is illustrated here with the preparatory drawing (Figs. 10-13). These remained the only large-scale treatment until Rubens painted A Wolf and Fox Hunt in 1616. Stradanus's tapestry designs became known through prints, engraved and published in Antwerp by Hieronymus Cock and Philip Galle. Cock issued engravings of six scenes in 1570, but the wolf hunts and the fox and hare hunt were not among them. After Cock's death in 1570, his widow published twelve additional scenes, this time with two wolf hunts--with toils and with firearms--and the hare and fox hunt. Stradanus then designed forty-three new hunting scenes for engraving by Galle; these appeared in an unnumbered set in 1578, and in a numbered one in 1580. In 1602, Galle again issued hunting scenes by Stradanus, adding another sixty-one to the 1578 and 1580 sets. The Wolf Hunt with Toils and the Wolf Hunt with Traps and Shotgun were included in the 1602 publication (Figs. 14, 15).
Stradanus's designs exercised considerable influence on contemporary hunting imagery, as the work of Jost Amman (1582), Hans Bol (1582), and Antonio Tempesta attests. However, these artists apparently did not regard Stradanus's wolf hunts as authoritative, because each treated the subject independently. A comparison between Stradanus's and Amman's par force hunt of the wolf with toils illustrates this point. Whereas Stradanus focuses attention on the mounted hunter, who turns to strike the wolf, Amman concentrates on the beast as it flees from its human and animal pursuers (Fig. 16).
Graphic work was most likely Rubens's starting point, but the Wolf and Fox Hunt bears little resemblance to this heritage. Rubens's interest lies mainly in individual motifs, such as the mounted hunters and noblewoman, and men on foot, rather than in the compositional arrangements of his precursors. Indeed, his picture is a radical departure from the received traditions in this regard. Uniting planar and recessional designs and a central axis with a diagonal rising from left to right, Rubens constructs a composition that seamlessly blends classical and Baroque tendencies. The picture's low horizon dramatically silhouettes the figures against the sky and eliminates the anecdotal detail in the middle and far distance favored by Stradanus and his followers. These features are significant departures from sixteenth-century hunting imagery, where a high horizon is conventional, the terrain consists of rolling hills, and observers are stationed on a prominence in the foreground surveying the hunt. Bernard van Orley, Stradanus, and Tempesta often use these configurations, although not exclusively. In an alternative arrangement, which also has the high horizon, the hunt climaxes in the foreground.
Although Rubens staffed his hunt with types found in scenes by Stradanus and Tempesta, he did not turn to them for exempla in all cases. The mounted hunters, for instance, are based on his own pictures: the model for the horse and rider galloping in on the left is the equestrian portrait of the Genoese nobleman Giancarlo Doria (Fig. 2); and the prototype for the hunter on the rearing gray is the central horseman in the so-called Riding School (around 1612; Fig. 17). However, the inventions of Stradanus and Tempesta play a role indirectly at least, since Rubens apparently consulted them when designing the earlier equestrian pictures. As for the men on foot on the left, advancing toward the wolves, Rubens went directly to Stradanus and Tempesta for the motif (Fig. 18). Finally, though noblewomen are part of the tradition of cynegetic imagery, Tempesta alone, in two etchings, shows a woman in attendance at a wolf hunt (Figs. 19, 20).
In this discussion, the composition of A Wolf and Fox Hunt and its motifs have been considered in relationship to hunting iconography, to identify traditional motifs and to recognize new ones in the picture. In this regard, one further observation should be made. Only in Rubens's piece are wolves heroic, resisting their attackers even in the face of overwhelming force. All other par force hunting scenes show wolves in flight, trying to elude capture, or if cornered, attacking the hounds but not the hunters. In Stradanus's tapestry design, for instance, the wolf's small size and mangy appearance make it little more than a nasty pest, despite its snarling expression (Fig. 21). Moreover, Stradanus does not endow the animal with the capacity to mount a credible resistance. On the other hand, Rubens portrays the wolves as true warriors, strong, armed by nature, fearless, and fierce in the heat of battle. That he knowingly heroicized the wolf to make it an opponent worthy of the noble hunters is reflected in a comment that he reportedly made in February 1616, which the Englishman Toby Matthew communicated to Sir Dudley Carleton:
For in this peece the beasts are all alive, and in act eyther of escape or resistance, in the expressing wherof Snyders doth come short of Rubens, and Rubens saith that he should take it in ill part, if I should compare Snyders with him in that point. The talent of Snyders is to represent beasts but especiallie Birds altogether dead, and wholly without anie action.
The very phrase used to characterize the animals in the Wolf and Fox Hunt, "in act eyther of escape or resistance," actually paraphrases Lomazzo's remark about Leonardo's painting of a lion and dragon in combat. According to Lomazzo, this picture was carried out "with so greate skill, that all the beholders doubted which of them woulde conquer, so well he expressed in each of them the motions of defense and offence." Following this account, Lomazzo cites stanzas from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso that describe the appearance and behavior of various animals, and recommends that painters seek out:
such like examples . .. whereby it will easily appeare, after what sorte the diverse motions of livinge creatures should bee expressed, when we cannot come to drawe them by life. Only the reading of Poets, Historiographers, and other writers, will help us for the understanding of the natures and formes of living creatures.
As the earlier discussion indicates, Rubens took Lomazzo's advice to heart.
In this connection, a detail which has gone unremarked about the horses should be mentioned, the spittle on their lips. Its representation may well owe its origin to Pliny's reports of how Protogenes and Nealkes painted foam on the lips of animals. Unable to achieve the naturalistic effect he desired with a brush, "it was foam painted with the brush, not frothing from the mouth," Protogenes, in frustration, hurled a sponge at the picture of a dog he was painting, achieving by chance what he could not accomplish intentionally. Nealkes likewise represented foam by tossing a sponge at the picture of a horse. Apparently intrigued by these stories, Rubens, too, tried his hand at painting froth on the lips of the horses. Actually, this was not the first time he had attempted this effect. The same detail appears in the 1606 equestrian portrait of Giancarlo Doria (Fig. 2), although in that piece the spittle runs down over the animal's lips, rather than forming spume. Rubens continued to paint this effect in later representations of horses, as the Ferdinand, Cardinal Infante of Spain (Madrid, Prado) attests. In contrast to the ancients, however, a brush alone suffices for Rubens. With this detail he brings the horses to life. Like the beads of perspiration dripping from the forehead of the ruddy horn blower, the foam on the horses' muzzles testifies to animate existence, to breath itself. As it is exhaled, the breath froths the secretions which flow from mouth and nostril at this moment of high passion.
In this section, discussion has focused on hunting iconography after 1567, the date of Stradanus's tapestry designs for the Medici. What has not been considered yet is Rubens's interest in early Netherlandish hunting imagery, which is well documented. He owned a drawing of a hawking party by Bernard van Orley, which he retouched, and he made two drawings after fifteenth-century Netherlandish tapestries depicting Burgundian courtiers hawking and hunting the boar. As in other studies in the London Costume Book (ca.1609-12), dress is the artist's main focus. Besides Burgundian court styles, sixteenth-century Netherlandish and German attire is carefully recorded, as are garments from Turkey, Russia, and China. Although Rubens did not go back as far as the fifteenth century for costume models for the Wolf and Fox Hunt, he did draw upon sixteenth-century styles for certain aspects of the nobility's attire. This was done selectively, with older and contemporary fashions worn together. The hunter on the rearing horse shows this most distinctly. From his waist down--riding shorts, leggings, and boots--the garments are modish. Identical apparel is worn, for instance, by the young Louis XIII in Crispijn de Passe the Younger's illustrations for Antoine Pluvinel's riding manual Maneige royal, published in Paris in 1623, but drawn about 1617 (Fig. 22). The black hat, on the other hand, resembles sixteenth-century bonnets, like the ones depicted in the Hunts of Maximilian tapestries (Fig. 23) or related pieces by van Orley and his circle, such as the Paris drawing, The Nobleman Discovers the Lovers (Fig. 24). As for the skintight shirt, this seems to have no connection either to the past or to the present, but to be an invention by Rubens. If we turn to the other mounted hunter, we find that his bonnet is anachronistic too. It is styled like the youth's in the 1519 engraving of a dandy holding a skull by Lucas van Leyden, except that it has but one feather (Fig. 25). The lady's costume is similarly is reminiscent of sixteenth-century dress (Fig. 26). Her feathered beret, ornamented with magnificent jewelry, resembles the hat worn by the woman on the right of the woodcut Of Dress and Finery of the Body (Fig. 27), designed by Hans Weiditz for a German edition of Petrarch's De rebus utriusque fortunae, published in Augsburg in 1532. Rubens copied many figures from this book around 1598-1600, including the one just mentioned (Fig. 28). Although a specific source for the noblewoman's hair style cannot be identified, the long plaits recall those worn by a Sibyl in Rubens's Costume Book, drawn after a sixteenth-century figure (Fig. 29). Finally, the lady's revealing, off-the-shoulder bodice, which certainly does not correspond to contemporary riding and hunting dress, brings to mind late fourteenth- and early sixteenth-century fashions (Figs. 30-32).
Scholars have related the archaizing aspect of the hunters' garments to Rubens's revival of the courtly hunting scene, but its significance extends much further. It is indicative of an interest in regional history that was widespread in the Spanish Netherlands, largely on account of sponsorship by the archdukes during the two decades of their rule--1599-1621. When Albrecht and Isabella became sovereigns of the Netherlands in 1599, they supported research on the history of their territories as part of a policy to develop a sense of national identity, a consciousness of patria, as embodied in dynastic history and the history of local religious institutions. To this end antiquarian research for a history of Brabant was carried out by the archducal historian Jean-Baptiste Grammaye. A history of the counts of Burgundy, which was to conclude with the archdukes themselves, also received support. Integral to this program was visual documentation. Antoine de Succa, the Antwerp painter, antiquarian, and customs official, was directed to investigate effigies of the archdukes' ancestors in 1600. In the following year, he visited cities in Flanders and Brabant to make drawings of figures having historical interest, after medieval and Renaissance sculptures, paintings, tapestries, miniatures, seals, medals, and coins. Additional research was carried out by de Succa in 1608 and 1615. The annotated drawings, which were assembled in notebooks called Mémoriaux, were made available to other artists to study and copy. Rubens is the best-known master to avail himself of this information; his copies are in the Costume Book mentioned above.
Rubens's romantic evocation of the "good old days" in the Wolf and Fox Hunt was thus well suited to the tastes of the archdukes and to their political ambitions. It should also be pointed out that Rubens's blend of current modes of attire along with earlier ones was probably meant to show historical continuity insofar as the nobility was concerned. For just as the nobility had exercised the privilege of hunting in the past, so their descendants continued to enjoy the same prerogative in the present day.
Hunting Regulations in the Spanish Netherlands
In the Spanish Netherlands, the lengthy civil war led to a dramatic increase in the wolf population by the turn of the century, causing severe economic hardship to the region. Wolves had been drawn to the area by the war, where they found sustenance on the battlefield, feeding on carrion. Reproducing without hindrance, they roamed agricultural lands and forests, forcing farmers to abandon their tenancies and flee, and killing off game in the chases or game preserves. They also menaced travelers, making it unsafe to transport goods by land. By 1612, the situation had deteriorated to such a degree that the archdukes could no longer remain passive. They wrote an eighteen-point hunting proclamation to address the situation, explaining in the introduction: "We have received news that wolves are increasing daily in the Antwerp area, endangering both men and animals." The ordinance instructs every town to appoint a wolf hunter, to keep its hunting paraphernalia in readiness, and to organize its men in a militia prepared to obey orders and stay with the hunt until it was concluded. Rewards and fines are stipulated, and article eleven requires every town to keep a dated record of "all wolves, young or old, which have been shot or trapped."
An additional hunting law was published on August 31, 1613. Its scope was far more extensive than in the previous year, covering all facets of hunting in 116 articles. In fact, it was the most extensive hunting legislation ever promulgated in the Spanish Netherlands. Moreover, it is the first piece of uniform legislation that the archdukes issued for all the provinces, and in this respect it reveals their political aim of unifying the provinces with a consistent set of laws. The introduction explains its origin: "because there is little order regarding hunting, and we have received many complaints from our governors in the provinces, because the edicts of our predecessors and our own edicts have not been maintained and observed." Except for Brabant, where the provincial council rejected the legislation, since it conflicted with regional customary law, it was adopted throughout the Spanish Netherlands.
Rather than public safety, which the 1612 legislation addressed, the focus of the 1613 edict is the restoration of the chase, the preeminent sport of the nobility, which the civil war in the Netherlands had curtailed. During the years of disorder, poachers and brigands took advantage of the circumstances to kill game wantonly, causing the stock to decline precipitously. The Twelve Years' Truce, which was signed in 1609, gave the archdukes the opportunity to undertake conservation policies aimed at replenishing the preserves and the incentive to carry them out, since with the cessation of hostilities the nobility had the leisure to hunt. The 1613 edict is the archdukes' detailed response to this problem.
The legislation treats the wolf hunt in three articles, only one of which number 58, has a direct bearing on Rubens's Wolf and Fox Hunt. It speaks of "the hunt of the fox and of the wolf," combining the two hunts into a single enterprise, contrary to tradition. This, I believe, is Rubens's point of departure for the exceptional subject of his picture.
58. As for the hunt of the fox and of the wolf, which has always been allowed, we too permit it in winter, when snow is on the ground, as well as in other seasons, provided it is done in the presence or with the consent of an officer, who usually has this responsibility, or by those vassals who have the privilege and the right to hunt with a pack of dogs, a horn, and a good number of people who can raise a very noisy halloo. Hunters who take a fox or a wolf in this manner will receive a reward, paid from the province's annual "tour du loup," which is collected by the officer or by his delegate. Communities and villages will provide them with food, but nothing else is mandatory.
Thus, article 58 begins by reaffirming the traditional right to hunt the wolf and the fox and defines their hunting season. Unlike other animals, whose chase is restricted for reasons of conservation and to protect crops from being trampled, wolves and foxes may be hunted year round, with the proviso that the hunt is authorized. Next, the regulation prescribes the hunting party: it is to consist of a large group of able-bodied men led by an official appointed by the archdukes or by a seigneur with rights of high justice, permitting him to hunt on his own domain and the land under his jurisdiction. His status is indicated by a pack of hounds and by a hunting horn. According to article 31, ownership of a hunting horn is limited to a vassal with the rights and privileges of hunting, to a village in the domain of the archdukes, where the horn is guarded by an appointee of the grand veneur, or to a nobleman privileged to maintain a hunting pack. Only when the horn is carried along (sous la conduite de telle trompe) is hunting permitted.
The elements of the hunt mentioned here correspond to "the noble hunt," which is identified with the Brabantine adage "to hunt fur with fur, and feather with feather." The sole purpose of the noble hunt is recreation, a passetemps. A vassal's prerogative, the noble hunt authorizes only hounds for the chase, a sword for administering the coup de grace, and a hunting horn. Firearms, nets, and other mechnical aids are forbidden. A patent sign of status, the noble hunt embodied conservative values; the old ways over newer fashions.
The parallels between article 58 and Rubens's Wolf and Fox Hunt are striking indeed, and strongly suggest that Rubens based his picture on a reading of it. The article accounts for the picture's most problematic aspect, a combined hunt of wolves and foxes, as well as its other distinctive features--the noblemen leading the hunt, their band of retainers, and the pack of hounds. The noblewoman's presence, though sanctioned by pictorial convention, is also explained by the article's allusion to the adage defining a noble hunt. Carrying a goshawk, the noblewoman alludes to the hunt of "feather with feather." In addition, she may also refer to the sovereign rights of Netherlandish territorial princes, as codified on seals. One popular image, showing the suzerain mounted on a horse with a hawk and hounds, was often used by female rulers, such as Jeanne, countess of Flanders and Marie, duchess of Burgundy, to indicate territorial dominion (Fig. 33). Thus, the noblewoman is not merely a charming addition whose existence serves to underscore masculine physique and prowess, but also an important figure in her own right on account of what she represents. As for the horn, its legal significance is recognized by the instrument's position in the very center of the picture. Finally, the hunt occurs in a verdant landscape, in keeping with the article's lack of seasonal restrictions.
While the correspondences argue powerfully for article 58 as the point of departure for the Wolf and Fox Hunt, this identification does not explain Rubens's motives for selecting it in the first place. Presumably he chose this exceptional subject because he believed that it would appeal to certain clients whom he had in mind. Much about his aims and the social milieu that the picture was intended to address can be learned from a study of its early history.
The History of A Wolf and Fox Hunt
When Sir Dudley Carleton, the newly appointed English ambassador to the United Provinces, traveled through Antwerp on a diplomatic mission in August 1616, he visited Rubens's studio and there saw A Wolf and Fox Hunt. The picture apparently impressed him deeply, because after he returned to The Hague, he directed Toby Matthew and George Gage, his agents in the Spanish Netherlands, to negotiate its purchase. From their correspondence we learn that the piece was completed before October 1616, and that Rubens remarked that he had erred in making the work so large--according to Matthew, it was 18 feet long and between 11 and 12 feet high--because "in making the picture so very bigge, . . . none but great Princes have houses fitt to hang it up." By the beginning of February 1617, the duke of Aarschot, Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg, had purchased the work for £100, according to Matthew. The agent also noted that Archduke Albrecht had seriously considered buying it "long ere this," but had changed his mind because he did not have a chamber large enough to accomodate the picture, other than the great hall. Matthew commented that such a hall was not really appropriate since it was not private but a semipublic or public space: it "is yours, or mine, as much as his." Whether the information about the archduke's interest in the painting was merely rumor and whether Rubens himself had mentioned it to Carleton's agent are unclear, but the report should be taken seriously in any case. We may infer that Rubens painted the hunting scene with the archdukes in mind as potential clients, but when they decided not to purchase the picture, either for the reason stated or for some other, he sought new customers. The connection with the archdukes surely would have made the picture more desirable, and its size, though problematic, was turned into a virtue by Rubens, who emphasized that its dimensions made the piece appropriate for a prince's residence alone, a remark calculated to appeal to the dignity and sense of importance of his clients. Rubens's strategy was effective: not only did he sell the painting to the duke of Aarschot; he also made a reduced copy for Carleton.
Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg (1587-1640), named duke of Aarschot in 1616, is one of the tragic figures of his day (Fig. 34). Having attained the highest honors in the Hapsburg Netherlands, including the order of the Golden Fleece, he fell from grace in 1634, and spent the last six years of his life under house arrest in Madrid. The arrest occurred while he was on a diplomatic mission in Spain. Charged with requesting Philip IV to grant the States General of the southern Netherlands the power to negotiate a truce or peace with the United Provinces, Aarschot was sent to Spain in December 1633 as the "premier membre de la Noblesse du Brabant" (the highest-ranking member of the nobility of Brabant). Although initially received with great consideration by Philip IV, he was denounced four months after his arrival, accused of participating in the 1632 conspiracy to overthrow Spanish rule in the Netherlands. While admitting knowledge of the plot, he denied involvement in it and maintained his innocence. Despite letters from the archduchess Isabella written on his behalf, Aarschot was imprisoned for some months before being placed under house arrest, in December 1634. Three years later his wife and eldest son joined him, but they were not allowed to reside in his quarters. Aarschot's depressing and restrictive circumstances brought on a debilitating disease, to which he succumbed in 1640. Shortly before his death, Philip IV sent word that his case was under review and a favorable outcome was expected; the duke was too ill to rally, however, and he died the day after receiving the king's message.
When Aarschot acquired the Wolf and Fox Hunt in 1617, he was apparently on good terms with Rubens, but by 1633 the relationship had soured, as Balthazar Gerbier attests. On January 28, 1633, Gerbier wrote: "The duke d'Arschot has a great aversion to [Rubens], for several reasons too long to relate." The estrangement between them reached its high point after Rubens failed to wait on Aarschot, when the latter made a twenty-four-hour stopover in Antwerp, while on his way to the Dutch Republic. Both men were involved in peace negotiations at The Hague, Aarschot as representative of the States General, Rubens as an unofficial observer and negotiator for the archduchess. Before setting forth on his journey Aarschot complained about Rubens's involvement, which he felt usurped his authority and challenged his social preeminence. When the duke arrived in Antwerp, he expected Rubens to present himself along with the papers that had been entrusted to him by the archduchess, but the painter merely sent Aarschot a brief note. This snub brought a stinging rebuke from the duke, who denounced the artist's presumption for addressing him as if he were his equal ("you should learn how your sort should address people of my kind"). The letters soon became public knowledge, after Aarschot sent copies to the archduchess, the States General, and the marquis of Aytona. Although a reconciliation was attempted, Aarschot, it seems, never forgave Rubens, whom he suspected of conspiring in his downfall in Spain. Given these circumstances, it is all the more surprising to learn that the duke had A Wolf and Fox Hunt sent to him in Madrid to decorate his residence there. One would have thought that his aversion to Rubens would have deterred him from keeping the picture near him, where it would have been a constant reminder of the artist's impertinence and treachery and the duke's former greatness, but evidently that was not the case. Clearly what the picture signified outweighed all other considerations.
Reading the "Wolf and Fox Hunt"
In the absence of documentation, we cannot prove beyond a doubt that Rubens turned to the 1613 hunting legislation for the subject of A Wolf and Fox Hunt, but since correspondences are so striking between the picture and the placard, the association seems very likely. In a similar vein, the claim that this subject had a political aspect must remain speculative, despite the indirect evidence that can be marshaled in its support.
There is no reason to doubt the report that Rubens initially offered the work to Archduke Albrecht. This suggests that from the very beginning, when the project was initiated, Rubens had him in mind as the potential buyer. We may suppose, therefore, that subject of the picture probably addressed specific interests of the Albrecht and his consort Isabella.
A primary concern of the archdukes was the restoration of civil order in the Spanish Netherlands to insure that the peace policy they pursued would bear economic fruit. The hunting legislation they proposed in 1613, especially the articles dealing with wolves and foxes, was indicative of this concern. By seeing to it that these beasts were destroyed, the archdukes made it safe to farm, to conduct overland trade, and to travel freely. The husbandman no longer had to stand guard to protect his flock and poultry yard from these destructive marauders, and the urban dweller gained a new degree of security when venturing forth beyond his city's walls. Thus, the picture's subject had a topical interest, reflecting the realities of the moment and the measures undertaken by the archdukes to ameliorate the circumstances of their subjects' lives.
Additionally, the picture may be viewed from an allegorical perspective, chiefly as a depiction of the triumph of law and order over the miseries and disorders following in the wake of war, a subject no less topical, given the recent end to hostilities in the region. This reading is based primarily on the wolf's symbolic identity as an attribute or companion to Mars, the god of war and as a personification of war's great evil, rapine or plunder. According to Ripa, in the 1603 edition of the Iconologia, the wolf and Rapine share a violent nature and each seizes its prey or booty unlawfully. Further odious attributes endemic to war, such as rapaciousness, voraciousness, and injustice, are also assigned the wolf in the scientific and art-theoretical literature of the time. While the fox is not included in the emblematics of war, its thieving, malicious nature, described earlier, makes it a suitable companion to the wolf in this context. It too is representative of the type of predatory transgressive behavior associated with war and its aftermath.
In this allegory, the nobles have an important part to play. Leading the attack on the wolves and foxes, the nobles' physique and physiognomy, bearing and costume, and a certain bold fearlessness indicate that their status is not conferred but inherited. They are members of the old nobility, that is of the noblesse de race or noblesse d'épée. Such nobles claimed a pure lineage, unblemished by ancestors who were mere commoners. They also asserted that their dignity, authority, and military aptitude derived from blood inherited from a progenitor, who was a knight. Martial arts were thus pivotal to the nobleman's identity, whose principal duty was military service to his suzerain or king. This responsibility was recognized by the military belt or baldric, which allowed the knight to bear a sword at all times. Another insignia of knighthood is the golden spur, worn only by a noble whose "dignity ranks above that of plain gentlemen." Since the nobleman on the rearing horse has a golden spur, to which Rubens calls attention in various ways, he evidently belongs to this elite. Presumably his beautiful companion and the other equestrian hunter are members of the high nobility as well.
In times of war, the nobility is mobilized to lead the army and to serve as soldiers, risking "life for the defense of the state," as Charles Loyseau (1564-1627), the social theorist, explains in Traicté des ordres et simples dignitez (1610). In another passage, Loyseau writes that hunting "is rightly reserved to nobles so that in peacetime they may keep up an exercise similar to war, as hunting is." The observation was hardly new, for as early as the fourth century B.C., in Cynegeticus, formerly attributed to Xenophon, hunting is said to be a peacetime preparation for war. Yet the fact that hunting is given as one of the defining characteristics of the nobleman's rank only six years before Rubens painted A Wolf and Fox Hunt is significant, since it points to the idea's currency in contemporary thought. As for the close association drawn between hunting and peace at this time, we need only turn to the frontispiece of Pierre Matthieu's Histoire de France (1610) for evidence (Fig. 35). Here hunting and jousting are enjoyed in a land where Maria de' Medici, the embodiment of peace, reigns supreme.
Since hunting was looked upon as a peacetime exercise for war, practiced by noblemen to maintain their readiness in event of hostilities, A Wolf and Fox Hunt reaffirms the justness of the nobility's privileges and the eminence of their estate. For it is in their hands that the security of the state resides. The nobility appear as the upholders of law and order, an obligation that they have fulfilled since ancient times, as the archaizing elements of their costume indicate, and that they continue to undertake in the present.
All the issues that have been considered--the picture's topicality, its allusions to the archdukes's hunting edicts and to the restoration of law and order under their aegis, its emphasis on the prerogatives of the nobility, on their role in restoring civil order, and on their readiness to defend the state--suggest that Rubens designed A Wolf and Fox Hunt for the archdukes. The picture could be said to publicize their political efforts, on the one hand, and, on the other, to fashion an image of society reflective of their views, according to which the nobility and not the commoners, as was the case in the Dutch Republic, dominated social, economic, and political life. This glorification of the old feudal order held great appeal for the archdukes, since it coincided with their desire to establish a kingdom in the Spanish Netherlands. As we noted earlier, the archdukes had supported genealogical research to investigate their Netherlandish and Burgundian ancestry; the probable purpose of these investigations was to lend legitimacy to their reign.
Although apparently designed for the archdukes, A Wolf and Fox Hunt became the property of Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg. D'Arenberg's acquisition of the painting in February 1617 coincided with two important events in his life. In the previous year, he had been named duke of Aarschot, and in 1617 he was made a knight of the Golden Fleece, an order open only to the highest nobles of the land. Thus, when the duke installed the picture in his residence, these new honors contextualized its reading. Indeed, in the setting of his palace, A Wolf and Fox Hunt resonated with the duke's glory, helping to construct both his public and his private persona. One can well imagine that Aarschot saw himself in the person of the golden-spurred knight, a handsome figure embodying the virtues of his privileged class; doubtless his visitors identified him as well with this knight. Yet, though the A Wolf and Fox Hunt speaks to Aarschot's particular circumstances, the picture still maintains its association with the archdukes, not least because of its physical proximity to the court. The duke's palace faced the courtyard entrance of the archdukes's palace, a unique location enjoyed by no other noble (Fig. 36). This site conferred great prestige and honor on Aarschot's residence, making it a satellite of the archdukes' court.
During the course of the duke's ownership of A Wolf and Fox Hunt the picture became more pointedly autobiographical as events inflected the reading of the work. In 1626, for instance, Aarschot was appointed Grand Hunstman of Namur, while in the following year the dignities of Grand Falconer of the Netherlands and Grand Huntsman of Flanders were bestowed on him, in essence making him the premier hunter in the Spanish Netherlands. In addition to adding further lustre to an already distinguished career, these dignities brought the duke considerable new authority and financial gain. To a visitor studying A Wolf and Fox Hunt, the association of the duke's new offices with the figure of the principal huntsmen must have been inescapable, giving the picture additional significance.
In the 1630s, the Hunt was contextualized by yet another set of circumstances, Aarschot's arrest for conspiracy in 1633 and his incarceration in Madrid. It will be recalled that the duke sent for the picture from Brussels. In his new situation the piece was possibly regarded as a kind of brief, an argument in the duke's defense, showing the Netherlandish nobility, and by implication the duke himself, as the upholders of law and order, the king's loyal subjects. Rather than inciting discord, rebellion, and disorder, these nobles engaged in a peacetime pastime, a leisure exercise which benefited the realm and supported its authority.
So far, A Wolf and Fox Hunt has been read only from the perspective of political and social circumstances, but these are not exclusive and do not preclude other accounts. One deserving particular attention, because de Clamorgan touches upon it in his hunting manual, concerns ethical matters. Throughout his book, moral issues are alluded to, but it is in chapter 10 where de Clamorgan explains the mechanics of wolf traps and their installation, that these matters are addressed most fully. Previously, de Clamorgan had said of the wolf that among the wild beasts which reside in the forest and are hunted by man it is the most malicious and causes the greatest harm. Whereas nature created the other animals of the hunt for nourishment and sport, she behaved like a stepmother with regard to the wolf, favoring it over other creatures. Multiplying these beasts everywhere, but especially in desolate places, it was as if she conspired in secret to ruin all other animals, especially the domesticated ones nurtured by man for his own needs, so that the wolf might prosper. Thus, when de Clamorgan addresses ethical issues, the malicious nature of the wolf is already well known. Yet, de Clamorgan does not blame the animal for the harm that it visits on man but rather finds man himself responsible for his own plight. He attributes this circumstance to the Fall, when man wilfully disobeyed God. Having been entrusted with the awesome charge of naming the animals and receiving dominion over them,
Almighty God took away this authority as an act of terrible vengeance on account of the sin of our first father, and to this day beasts are on the look out to harm, plunder, and even kill man. These circumstances attest to God's wrath, and to the justness of the punishment meted out. Man, therefore, should not complain or be surprised if beasts disobey him, though subject to his rule, since he disobeyed his creator.
Although punished harshly by God, whom de Clamorgan qualifies as good ("ce bon Dieu"), leaving no doubt regarding his justness, God did not forsake man. Fashioned in his own likeness and endowed with the creator's "instinct," that is a rational soul, man is able to protect himself from the cruelty and depredations of "savage, treacherous, evil animals," such as the wolf, by his godlike nature. In the hunt, intellect gives him an advantage over his animal enemies, whose weaponry depends exclusively on brawn and instinct. Though strength is important for man too, as is endurance, he triumphs over his adversary with traps and other devices; and his victory is a moral one. The import of a successful hunt transcends the mere capture and death of the wild prey; in a sense it is a restoration of the primitive hierarchy of creation, where man reigned supreme and animals were naturally subservient to him. Read from this perspective, A Wolf and Fox Hunt is a representation of the reinstatement of natural law or, put another way, it shows man making amends for his initial transgression, his sin against God. Having brought this great evil upon himself through his rebellion, he now struggles with the animals that have rebelled against him and by vanguishing them reestablishes the law and order of creation. Surely the contemporary audience, when regarding the Hunt, recognized how intimately this reading was bound to the ones discussed above.
Avowedly nostalgic, the picture glorifies the aristocratic life-style, wherein the nobleman resides on his extensive properties and follows ancient hunting customs, aided by his retainers and accompanied by his peers. As a pastime, he rids the land of malefactors, while maintaining his preparedness to defend his sovereign. Reflecting the values and ideals of the nobility, A Wolf and Fox Hunt also shapes the way that this privileged class regards itself. The ideal noble is represented as a fearless knight, born to lead his forces to a glorious outcome, to victory. This representation suited the temper of the moment, when the social advancement of commoners, be they lawyers, financiers, merchants, or craftsmen, encroached on the authority and prerogatives of the nobility. Perhaps better than any other subject, the hunt legitimated the noble's supreme position in society.Figures
1 Peter Paul Rubens, A Wolf and Fox Hunt, ca. 1616. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1910 (photo: Metropolitan Museum)
2 Rubens, Giancarlo Doria, 1606. Florence, Palazzo Vecchio (photo: Art Resource)
3 Rubens, Wolf and Fox Hunt, detail (photo: Bruce Schwarz)
4 Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Good Shepherd, 1616. Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts (photo: A.C.L)
5 Marten de Vos, Portrait of the Anselme Family, detail, 1577. Brussels, Musée royaux des Beaux-Arts (photo: A.C.L)
6 Rubens, A Wolf and Fox Hunt, detail (photo: Bruce Schwarz)
7 Paul de Vos, Fox Hunt, 1630s. Antwerp, Banque Paribas de Belgique (photo: Hugo Maertens)
8 Bedford Master School, Wolf Hunt, ca.1410, from Livre de la Chasse, MS fr. 616, fol. 96 v. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale (photo: Bibl. Nat.)
9 Bedford School, Fox Hunt, ca. 1410, from Livre de la Chasse, MS fr. 616, fol. 99v. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale (photo: Bibl. Nat.)
10 After Stradanus, Wolf Hunt with Nets, tapestry, 1574. Florence, Uffizi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza B.A.S.)
11 After Stradanus, Wolf Hunts with Toils, tapestry, 1574. Florence, Uffizi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza B.A.S.)
12 After Stradanus, Wolf Hunt with Traps, tapestry,1574. Florence, Uffizi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza B.A.S.)
13 Stradanus, Fox and Hare Hunt, drawing, 1567. Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe Uffizi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico Soprintendenza B.A.S.)
14 Philip Galle, after Stradanus, Wolf Hunt with Toils, engraving, 1602 (photo: New York Public Library)
15 Galle, after Stradanus, Wolf Hunt with Traps and Shotgun, engraving, 1602 (photo: New York Public Library)
16 Jost Amman, Wolf Hunt, woodcut, from Neuw Jagd und Weydwerck, 1582 (photo: The Illustrated Bartsch 20, pt. 2, p. 712)
17 Workshop of Rubens, The Riding School, ca. 1612. Formerly Berlin, Kaiser-Friedrich Museum (photo: Jörg P. Anders, courtesy W. A. Liedtke)
18 Tempesta, Bear Hunt, etching, 1595. Vienna, Graphische Sammlung Albertina (photo: Albertina)
19 Tempesta, Wolf Hunt, etching, 1590 (photo: Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum)
20 Tempesta, Wolf Hunt, etching, 1621 (photo: author)
21 Stradanus, Wolf Hunt with Toils, drawing, 1567. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins (photo: R.M.N.)
22 Crispijn de Passe the Younger, The "Passage," from Antoine de Pluvinel, L'Instruction du Roy en l'exercise de monter à cheval, Paris, 1625, engraving (photo: courtesy W. A. Liedtke)
23 After Bernard van Orley, The Hunts of Maximilian: November, detail, tapestry, ca. 1531-33. Paris, Musée du Louvre (photo: R.M.N.)
24 Follower of Van Orley, The Nobleman Discovers the Lovers, drawing, ca. 1530s. Paris, Musées du Louvre, Cabinet des Dessins (photo: R.M.N.)
25 Lucas van Leyden, Young Man with a Skull, engraving, 1519, (photo: Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
26 Rubens, A Wolf and Fox Hunt, detail (photo: Bruce Schwarz)
27 Hans Weiditz, Of Dress and Finery of the Body (Petrarch, Von der Artzney bayder Glück, p. XXIII). London, British Museum (photo: British Museum)
28 Rubens, Copy after Hans Weiditz, detail, drawing, ca. 1598-1600. London, British Museum (photo: British Museum)
29 Rubens, A Sibyl, detail, drawing, ca. 1608-12. London, British Museum (photo: British Museum)
30 Rubens, Conversion of Saint Bavo, detail, 1611-12. London, National Gallery (photo: National Gallery)
31 Rubens, Four Women, detail, drawing, ca. 1608-12. London, British Museum (photo: British Museum)
32 L. Beck, Scene from Theuerdank, woodcut, Nuremberg, 1517. London, British Museum (photo: British Museum)
33 Seals of Jeanne of Constantinople, countess of Flanders and Hainaut, 1223; Jean the Blind, count of Luxembourg, 1310; Marie of Burgundy, duchess of Burgundy, 1477 (photo: author)
34 Crispijn van de Passe, Philippe-Charles d'Arenberg, Duke of Aarschot, engraving. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier (photo: Bibl. Roy.)
35 Jacques de Fornazeris, Maria de' Medici as an Allegory of Peace, from Pierre Matthieu, Histoire de France, 1610, engraving. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale (photo: Bibl. Nat.)
36 Martin de Tailly, Map of Brussels. Detail showing the Palace of the Archdukes and the Palace of the Duke of Aarschot, 1640. Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier (photo: Bibl. Roy.)
Frequently Cited Sources
Balis, A., Rubens Hunting Scenes, trans. P. S. Falla, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. 18, II, London/New York, 1986.
Belkin, K. L., The Costume Book, Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, pt. XXIV, London/Philadelphia, 1978.
Cummins, J., The Hound and the Hawk, New York, 1988.
Clamorgan, J. de, La Chasse du Loup (1566), in La Vénerie de Jacques du Fouilloux, Paris, 1606, fols.109v-126.
Liedtke, W. A., Flemish Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2 vols., New York, 1984.
Phoebus, G., Livre de Chasse, ed. G. Tilander, Karlshamn, 1971.Footnotes
An earlier version of this study was presented in 1993 at the annual conference of the College Art Association, held in Seattle, Washington, at the session "Facing the Beast, 1500-1900." I am deeply grateful to Julius Held and Walter Liedtke for their critical comments on that text, which led me to reexamine and revise certain arguments regarding the political reading of the picture. I also wish to thank Maryan Ainsworth, Arnout Balis, Bryn Mader, Edward Morman, and Mary Crawford Volk for their assistance. Translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
1. On the painting, see Balis, 20-25, 95-104; Liedtke, I, 198-209; and idem, in Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America, selected by G. C. Bauman and W. A. Liedtke, Antwerp, 1992, 193-96.
2. See Balis, 98-100. The picture is first mentioned by Carleton's agents in the Southern Netherlands, Toby Matthew and George Gage, as a "hunting peece," without indicating its subject. Only in 1618, when Carleton subsequently tried to sell a smaller version to the king of Denmark, was it specified as a wolf and fox hunt. For the Carleton correspondence, see W. N. Sainsbury, Original Unpublished Papers Illustrative of the Life of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, London, 1859, 14-19; Correspondance de Rubens et documents épistolaires concernant sa vie et ses oeuvres, ed. M. Rooses and C. Ruelens, Antwerp, II, 1898, 85-87, 90, 93-94, 96-98, 107-8, 119-21. A Wolf and Fox Hunt remained in Aarschot's collection until his death in 1640, when it was purchased by the marquis of Leganés, Diego Messía Felípez de Guzmán. It appears as no. 1126 in a 1642 inventory drawn up during Leganés's lifetime, and as no. 1125 in a posthumous inventory of 1655; In both documents, a note indicates that the picture came from Aarschot's residence. That the New York Hunt is indeed this picture is confirmed by the number 1125 painted on its lower left; see Balis, 100. Yet, despite the certainty of the picture's provenance, a vexing issue still exists that turns on its dimensions. Its size is considerably smaller than "the hunting peece" referred to in the Carleton correspondence. According to Matthew's letter of Dec. 30, 1616, the picture measured between 11-12 ft. x 18 ft. (in Antwerp feet; an Antwerp foot is 11.14 in./28.3 cm) or 311.3-339.3 x 509.4 cm. The dimensions of the New York Hunt are 13.28 x 8.62 Antwerp ft. (245.4 x 376.2 cm). To account for the discrepancy Balis, 100, offered three hypotheses--that the very large Aarschot picture is lost; the "hunting peece" was cut down by Rubens in his workshop to make it more salable; Matthew was mistaken about the measurements. While Liedtke, 1992 (as in n. 1), 195, concurs with Balis, 100, in accepting the second suggestion as preferable, the results of a technical examination (Liedtke I, 202, n. 1), which Maryan Ainsworth, (Metropolitan Museum of Art), kindly reviewed with me, do not support this view. It is likely, therefore, that Matthew, who was relying on second-hand information (he was then living in Louvain and it was Gage who negotiated with Rubens in Antwerp) was misinformed by Gage or erred himself when reporting the numbers to Carleton. For a detailed discussion of other versions of the Wolf and Fox Hunt, including copies, none of which could be the 18-foot-long canvas, see Balis, 96-97, 105-7.
3. Balis, 102.
4. M. Rooses, L'Oeuvre de P. P. Rubens: Histoire et description de ses tableaux et dessins, Antwerp, 1890, IV, 341.
5. Cummins, chap. 9, esp. 136-37, 141.
6. In certain hunting manuals, prey is divided into two groups, according to various criteria. The most important text in this regard is King Method and Queen Reason (Les Livres du Roy Modus et de la Royne Ratio, ed. G. Tilander, Paris, 1932, 140, 273), where five animals are classified as sweet (douce) and four as stinking (puant). The sweet ones--the stag, the hind, the fallow and roe deers, and the hare--do not have a foul odor, their pelts have a pleasing (amiable) color, either blond or tawny, and they do not bite. The four stinking animals, which include the boar, the wolf, the fox, and the otter, bite. In another system, the so-called sweet animals are referred to as red beasts and the stinking ones as black beasts. Yet another scheme recognizes the first group as edible and the second as inedible, except for the boar.
7. My thanks to Bryn Mader, Registrar of Collections, Department of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History, New York, for explaining the anatomical relationship between the wolf and the dog.
8. Rubens purchased the texts from the Antwerp publisher Balthasar Moretus between 1613 and 1617. See M. Rooses, "P. P. Rubens en Baltasar Moretus, IV," Rubens-Bulletijn, II, 1883, 187-91.
9. Rubens's interest in natural history has been commented on by various authors: e.g., H. F. Evers, Peter Paul Rubens, Munich, 1942,
106-7, called attention to Rubens's acquisition of Aldrovandi's Ornitholigiae in 1613, and suggested that his conception of the eagle in the Ganymede (Vienna, Prince Schwarzenberg Collection) may have have been informed by that text; J. R. Martin and C. L. Bruno refer to the same volume in connection with Cupid Supplicating Jupiter (Princeton, N. J., The Art Museum, Forbes Collection) in "Rubens's "Cupid Supplicating Jupiter," Rubens Before 1620, ed. J. R. Martin, Princeton, 1972, 13. For Rubens's interest in natural history and his application of scientific knowledge in various pictures, see Balis, 70-76. A. Balis, "Hippopotamus Rubenii: Een Hoofdstukje uit de Geschiedenis van de Zoölogie," in Feestbundel Kolveniershof en Rubenianum, Antwerp, 1981, 127-42; and idem, "Facetten van de Vlaamse dierenschilderkunst van de 15de tot de 17de eeuw," in Het Aards Paradijs: Dierenvoorstellingen in de nederlanden van de 16de en 17de eeuw, Antwerp, 1982, 37-55. For The Head of Medusa, see Susan Koslow, "How looked the Gorgon then . . .": The Science and Poetics of the Head of Medusa by Rubens and Snyders," in Shop Talk: Studies in Honor of Seymour Slive, Cambridge, Mass., 1995, 147-49.
10. Liedtke, I, 200.
11. Aelian, 10.26; Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals, trans. A. F. Scholfield, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass.,/London, 1971.
12. The Bestiary: A Book of Beasts, trans. T. H. White, New York, 1960, 57.
13. E. Topsell, The History of Four-Footed Beasts and Serpents and Insects (London, 1658), repr., New York, 1967, I, 571; and C. Gesner, Historia Animalium: I, De Quadrupedibus Viviparis, Zurich, 1551, 719.
14. Jean de Clamorgan, seigneur of Saane, Normandy, dedicated the text to Charles IX. Often published with Charles Estienne's Agriculture et maison rustique or Jacques du Fouilloux's La Vénerie, it was translated into German and Italian. The edition used here is La Vénerie de Jacques du Fouilloux, Paris, 1606.
15. De Clamorgan, fol. 110v.
16. The picture is signed and dated lower left: P. BREUGHEL 1616. See Schenking Doktor en Mevrouw Frans Heulens-van Meiren, Koninklijk Musea voor Schoone Kunsten van België, Departement Oude Kunst, Brussels, 1988, 32. The date is of particular interest, since it coincides with the presumed date of the Wolf and Fox Hunt. Two other versions of the picture are known, but neither is signed or dated.
17. Oppian, Cynegetica, 3.315-24; Oppian, Colluthus, Tryphiodorus, trans. A. W. Mair, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass.,/London, 1963.
18. Topsell (as in n. 13), 570. Rubens may also have been aware of the hunting practice recommended by de Clamorgan, fol. 122v, who urges "the hunter to lodge a sword or a large stick in the wolf's mouth and push it deep into the [wolf's] throat to prevent the beast from wounding the greyhounds on their muzzles and legs."
19. See Aristotle, Historia Animalium, 501a14, where saw-toothed animals are identified as those "whose sharp-pointed teeth interlock"; Aristotle, Historia Animalium, trans. A. L. Peck, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1965; see, too, Aristotle, Parts of Animals, 3.631b17-27, trans. A. L. Peck, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1968; Pliny, Natural History, 2.61.160-62, trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1967.
20. Oppian (as in n. 17), 3.261.
21. Aelian (as in n. 11), I.31.
22. Ibid., II.37 .
23. Oppian (as in n. 17), I.261-70.
24. Plutarch, The Eating of Flesh, bk. I, 994-95; Plutarch's Moralia, XII, trans. H. Cherniss and W. C. Helmbold, Loeb Library Edition, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1968.
25. M. J. S. Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology, Chicago/London, 1976, 63.
26. J. Ray, Historia Plantarum Species Hanctenus Editas Aliasquae, London, 1686-1704, bk. 3, chap. 24.
27. I have used J. Evelyn, Kalendrium hortense; or the gard'ner's almanac, 10th ed., London, 1706, 172, which includes the 2d ed. of the Acetaria.
28. The topos of tooth and claw took on heightened meaning in the 19th century in the context of new advances in the biological sciences. Although Georges Cuvier, the great comparative anatomist and founder of vertebrate paleontology, did not attach moral significance to the body's organs and their functions, it is of interest, nevertheless, that tooth and claw is one exemplar used to explain his procedure for reconstructing the structure of an animal. [For Cuvier, see W. Coleman, Georges Cuvier Zoologist. A Study in the History of Evolution Theory, Cambridge, Mass., 1964. According to Coleman (4, passim), though Cuvier was a devout Christian, his religious convictions affected his scientific work only insofar as he tried to show that there was no contradiction between religious truths and scientific beliefs.] He reasoned that if an animal has sharp claws it is a carnivore and, by the principle of correlation of parts, a law which he formulated, it could be expected to have teeth suited to seizing and rending its prey. [See, for instance, Coleman, 120, where the author quotes a passage from the third edition of Cuvier's Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe et sur les changemens qu'elles ont produits dans la règne animal (Paris, 1830), which elucidates this association: "the form of the tooth leads to the form of the condyle, that of the scapula to that of the nails . . . similarly the nails, the scapula, the condyle, the femur, each separately reveal the tooth or each other." Cuvier also indicated the connection or correlation of parts between nails and teeth in his classification of mammals with nails, Coleman, 84. The principles, "correlation of parts," and "subordination of characters," are considered by Rudwick, 104.]
Some decades later, in 1850, the topos appears in Alfred Lord Tennyson's epic poem, In Memoriam, written to commemorate the death of a beloved friend. [See S. J. Gould, "Red in Tooth and Claw," Natural History, 101, no. 11, 1992, 14-23.] Tennyson invokes both nature and natural science to console himself for his loss. It is in this context that the famous line cited above occurs: "Nature, red in tooth and claw." [The stanza in full reads: "Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation's final law--Though Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shrieked against his creed."] Although it came to be associated with the mechanism Charles Darwin posited to explain evolution, the theory of natural selection, known popularly as survival of the fittest, Tennyson did not intend it this way. He published In Memoriam nine years before The Origin of Species (1859) and was ignorant of the book's revolutionary ideas. In fact, "Nature, red in tooth and claw" still resonates with the voice of the ancients and their early modern followers.
29. Gesner (as in n. 13), 723; Topsell (as in n. 13), 178, 572. See below for enmity between wolves and foxes as embodied in the Roman de Renard.
30. Desiderius Erasmus, The Colloquies of Erasmus, trans. C. R. Thompson, Chicago/London, 1965, 516-27; K. Thomas, Man and the Natural World, New York, 1983, chap. 4: and passim. See, too, S. Koslow, Frans Snyders: The Noble Estate. Seventeenth-Century Still-Life and Animal Painting in the Southern Netherlands, Antwerp, 1995, 49, 253-54.
31. Cited in M. M. Reese, The Royal Office Master of the Horse, London, 1976, 170.
32. De Clamorgan, fol. 110v; du Fouilloux (as in n.14), fol. 101v.
33. See A. Zweite, Marten de Vos als Maler, Berlin, 1980, 322-24, for the Anselme portrait. De Clamorgan, fol. 113v, writes: "A baby in swaddling clothes teethes more quickly and painlessly when it has wolves' teeth. For this reason Parisian mothers give their newborn infants a silver rattle with a large wolf's tooth set at its tip, which the babies play with, suck on, and rub on their gums. This helps them to teethe with little discomfort." For wolves' teeth in 17th-century inventories, see E. Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen uit de Zeventiende Eeuw, I. 1600-1617, Fontes Historiae Artis Neerlandicae, Bronnen voor de Kunstgeschiedenis van de Nederlanden, Brussels, 1984, 339, Sept. 7, 1615 ("Een wolffstant met silver beslaegen), 463 (an example in the inventory of the surgeon Jan van Loobosch, who died May 7, 1615): and ibid., III. 1627-1635, Brussels, 1987, 74, a small box with wolves' teeth, owned by Hendrik Smits, the Antwerp silversmith, who died Oct. 25, 1627. M. D. K. Bremmer, The Story of Dentistry, 3rd rev. ed., Brooklyn/London, 1954, 31, notes that wolf-tooth amulets were placed in cradles and hung around babies' necks. Although widespread, this usage did have its critics in the 17th century, as V. Guerini, A History of Dentistry from the Most Ancient Times until the End of the Eighteenth Century, New York, 1969, observes. For instance, in 1630, Johann Stephan Strolberger, in his treatise on teeth and gout, called the remedy vain and fantastical. Examples of such amulets survive in museums of science and natural history, medicine, and anthropology, e.g., in the Schweizerisches Pharmazie-Historisches Museum, Basel, and in the Pitt Rivers Museum, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Oxford, Inv. no. 1949.3.13. I am indebted to Ed Morman of The Johns Hopkins University, Institute of the History of Medicine, for information regarding amulets in these collections.
34. De Clamorgan, fol. 119. He also remarks (fol. 115v) that in the more than fifty years he has "waged war" on wolves not one of his dogs was killed, whereas his neighbors suffered losses in this regard; therefore, he advises "princes et grands seigneurs" to hunt only with dogs belonging to a "race" that loves to chase the wolf. To insure that they are "large, strong, and bold" he recommends feeding them plentiful food at the same time. Race in this context does not have the present-day meaning of pedigree, but refers, rather, to a family line possessing certain faculties.
35. Phoebus, 236-37, where the lévrier and the limier are indicated; De Clamorgan, fol. 115, for the chien courant. See Cummins, 12-31, for a comprehensive account of hunting dogs in medieval cynegetic literature; for the dog packs maintained by the archdukes and governors of the Spanish Netherlands, see A. Galesloot, La Maison de Chasse des ducs de Brabant et de l'ancienne cour de Bruxelles précédées d'un aperçu sur l'ancient droit de chasse, Brussels, 1854, 151-52, and 137, where the greyhound is mentioned for hunting the wolf (as well as the boar and the stag).
36. Phoebus, 241; "Aussi y doit encharner ses levriers plus que nulle autre beste, quar communement levriers prendront toute autre beste plus voulentiers que ne feront un lou." Excerpts from Phoebus's text are given in the 1606 edition of du Fouilloux (as in n. 14), fol. 105v, including the passage cited here, where the meaning is inverted. Whether by inadvertetence or intentionally, a phrase was left out, so that now the sentence suggests that the greyhound actually prefers to hunt the wolf ("Aussi y doit encharner ses levriers plus que nulle autre beste plus volontiers que ne feront un loup").
37. De Clamorgan, fol. 122v.
38. Phoebus, 106-12, "Where we talk about the manner and condition of dogs," exclusively concerns the greyhound, indicating its preeminence among dogs. The image of a greyhound reclining at the feet of a nobleman's effigy is a well-known feature of Gothic tomb monuments. A fine late example is the tomb of Margaret of Austria, governess of the Netherlands, begun in 1526 by Conrad Meit; see E. Panofsky, Tomb Sculpture, New York, n.d., 78-79, fig. 344.
39. Aelian (as in n. 11), 6.24, 64.
40. Oppian (as in n. 17), 3.449-60.
41. Phoebus, 100.
42. Topsell (as in n. 13), I, 176; Gesner (as in n. 13), 1086.
43. For the Ghent Fox Hunt, see P. Sutton, Northern European Paintings in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1990, 347-49, Fig. 128-2. For the Kassel Fox Hunt, see K. J. Müllenmeister, Meer und Land im Licht des 17. Jahrhunderts, Bremen, 1981, III, 92. A note in a sketchbook of de Vos (1595-1678) in the Prentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, documents the artist's collaboration with Rubens:"Ick Pauwels de Vos hebbe voor peter rubbens ghewrocht 6 daaghen" (fol. 1r); see Koslow (as in n. 29), 322, n. 28.
44. For fable literature and representation, see Koslow (as in n. 29), chap. 7.
45. See J. S. Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages, New York/London, p. 122; and Renard the Fox, trans. P. Terry, Berkeley-Los Angeles/Oxford, 1992, 3-7.
46. Reynard the Fox and Other Mediaeval Netherlands Secular Literature, ed. E. Colledge, trans. A. J. Barnouw and E. Colledge, London/New York, 160.
47. V. A. de la Montagne, "Schoolboeken te Antwerpen in de 17e Eeuw," Tijdschrift voor boek-en bibliotheken, V, 1907, 28.
48. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. G. Bull, Harmondsworth/New York, 1987, 99-100.
49. Gian Paolo Lomazzo, Trattato dell'arte della pittura, scoltura et architettura, bk. 6, chap. 58, in idem Scritti sulle arti, ed. R. P. Ciardi, Florence, 1974, II, 397.
50. Karel van Mander, Wtbeeldinge der Figueren (Alkmaar, 1604), repr., Utrecht, 1969, fol. 130.
51. Roy Modus (as in n. 6), 87-89.
52. Phoebus, 236-42.
53. Cummins, 137.
54. Phoebus, 242-45. See also Jacques du Fouilloux, La Vénerie et L'adolescence, ed. G. Tilander, Cynegetica XIV, Stockholm, 1967, 140-47.
55. William Twiti, The Art of Hunting: 1527, ed. B. Danielsson, Stockholm Studies in English, XXXVII, Cynegetica Anglica, I, Stockholm, 1977, 55.
56. Phoebus, passim. For color reproductions, see Illuminated Manuscripts: Medieval Hunting Hunting Scenes (" The Hunting Book" by Gaston Phoebus), text by G. Bise, trans. J. P. Tallon, Fribourg/Geneva, 1978, 79, 80.
57. See D. Heikamp, "Die Arazzeria Medicea im 16. Jahrhundert: Neue Studien," Münchener Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst, XX, 1969, 48-57; and Welmoet Bok-Van Kammen, "Stradanus and the Hunt," Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1977, 9-31. The chambre does not exist in its entirety: only Wolf Hunt with Nets, Wolf Hunt with Toils, and Wolf Hunt with Traps survive; missing are Wolf Hunt with a Shotgun and Fox and Hare Hunt.
58. Bok-Van Kammen (as in n. 57), 32-36.
59. Ibid., 71-84.
60. In addition to a par force wolf hunt with nets, Jost Amman depicts Wolves feeding on a Carcass, Catching a Wolf with a Duck Decoy, and Peasants Chasing Wolves with Flails. See The Illustrated Bartsch 20 (Part 2): German Masters of the Sixteenth Century. Jost Amman: Woodcuts, continued, ed. J. S. Peters, New York, 1985, 703, 715, 718, figs. 9.2 (371), 9.25 (371), 9.32 (371). These illustrations are reproduced from Künstliche Wolgerissene New Figuren von allerlei Jagt und Weidwerch, Frankfurt am Main, 1592.
61. For van Orley, September (Stag Hunt), see S. Schneebalg-Perelman, Les Chasses de Maximilien, Brussels, 1992, 74-75, fig. 47; for Stradanus, Hare Hunt, see Heikamp (as in n. 57), 58, fig. 38; for Tempesta, Ostrich Hunt, The Illustrated Bartsch 37: Antonio Tempesta. Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century. ed. Sebastian Buffa. New York, 1984, 11, no. 1108 (166).
62. Examples are van Orley, December (Boar Hunt), Schneebalg-Perelman (as in n. 61), 98-99, fig. 61; Stradanus, Ostrich Hunt, Heikamp (as in n. 57), 58, fig. 40; Tempesta, Leopard Hunt (1598), The Illustrated Bartsch 37 (as in n. 61), 11, no. 1107 (166).
63. Liedtke, 228.
64. W. A. Liedtke, The Royal Horse and Rider: Painting, Sculpture and Horsemanship, 1500-1800, New York, 1989, 232-33. The Riding School, formerly in Berlin, was destroyed in World War II. Though admittedly a workshop piece, the central rider appears less dynamic than the one in the Wolf and Fox Hunt, indicating that it may have been painted later. In any case, Balis, 103, n. 24, points out that the motif is not Rubens's invention, but Italian in origin; he cites a soldier in Raphael's 1513-14 fresco The Expulsion of Attila as an early example. Stradanus's representations of the Roman emperor Otho, engraved in 1590 by Crispijn de Passe (?) and Adriaen Collaert, may also be mentioned as possible models; see Liedtke (as above), 177, 219.
65. See W. A. Baillie-Grohman, Sport in Art, New York, 1969, figs. 61, 73, for examples in Stradanus's prints; for Tempesta, see The Illustated Bartsch 36: Italian Masters of the Sixteenth Century, ed. S. Buffa, New York, 1983, 65, 66, figs. 1167 (170), 1168 (170). In addition to prints, Rubens probably looked at paintings, such as Saint George on the exterior of the Oude Voetboeg triptych by Marten de Vos, formerly in Antwerp Cathedral (see Zweite [as in n. 33], 297-99, fig. 95); for the men on foot see, e.g., The Illustrated Bartsch 37 (as in n. 60), 267, fig. 1023 (164).
66. For Tempesta's prints, see The Illustrated Bartsch 37 (as in n. 61), 49, fig. 1150 (167), 68, fig. 1170 (170). For the participation of women in hunts, see Cummins, 7. Famous 15th-century examples are August with Falconers by the Limbourg brothers in the Très Riches Heures, ca. 1416, (The "Très Riches Heures" of Jean, Duke of Berry, Musée Condé, Chantilly, ed. J. Longnon et al., New York, 1969, fig. 9); and the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, ca. 1430s-40s, (G. W. Digby and W. Hefford, The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, London, 1971, figs. 22-27. The tradition continues in the 16th century in the Hunts of Maximilian tapestries after Bernard van Orley (Schneebalg-Perelman [as in n. 61], passim) and Lucas Cranach's The Deer Hunt of Charles V and the Elector Johann Friedrich of Saxony (Balis, fig.11).
67. Heikamp, (as in n. 57), 50; Collections de Louis XIV, dessins, albums, manuscrits, exh. cat., Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, 1977, 131-32.
68. Rooses-Ruelens (as in n. 2), II, 99-100. Although the phrase "escape or resistance" is Matthew's, it surely reflects a comment by Rubens.
69. Quoted from the 1598 English translation, A Tracte Containing the Artes of Curious Paintinge. repr. Amsterdam/New York, 1969, 83; Lomazzo (as in n. 49), II, 156.
70. Rubens appears to be the first artist to paint foam on the lips of horses in modern times. For the stories about Protogenes and Nealkes, see The Elder Pliny's Chapters on the History of Art, trans. K. Jex-Blake, commentaries by E. Sellers and R. V. Schoder, S.J., Chicago, 1976, 139 (Natural History., bk. 35.102-4).
71. See J. Rowlands, Rubens Drawings and Sketches, London, 1977, 56.
72. See Belkin, 101-3, 126-28; figs. 68, 115.
73. Louis XIII is identified as "Le Roy" in the engravings. See Liedtke (as in n. 64), figs. 107B, 108.
74. See Schneebalg-Perelman (as in n. 61), 31, 56, for hats, and 52, for drawing said to be by van Orley; this drawing is convincingly attributed by Balis to a follower of van Orley. See A. Balis et al., Les Chasses de Maximilien, exh.cat., Réunion des Musée Nationaux, Paris, 1993, 74-78, fig. 74; see Belkin, fig. 20, for a similar bonnet. Rubens's drawing depicts the 15th-century noble Josse de Lalaing in 16th-century fashion, according to Belkin.
75. J. Lavalleye, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Lucas van Leyden: The Complete Engravings, Etchings, and Woodcuts, New York, n.d., fig. 119 (Bartsch 174). For the iconography of the feather as a hair-and-hat ornament, see E. de Jongh, Tot Lering en Vermaak, Amsterdam, 1976, 59, and E. Buijsen et al., Music and Painting in the Golden Age, exh.cat., The Hague, 1994, 152.
76. Belkin, 130-34, figs. 128, 134.
77. Ibid., 44, 131, suggests that this sheet may have been added to the Costume Book by Pierre Crozat.
78. Ibid.,139-42, figs. 77, 151, 232. In the somewhat earlier Conversion of Saint Bavo (Fig. 32), ca. 1611-12, Rubens dresses the 7th-century saint's female relatives, Gertrude and Bega, in attire closely resembling the noblewoman's in A Wolf and Fox Hunt; they also wear off-the-shoulder garments and have braids.
79. E.g.,, Belkin, figs. 54, 77, 142, 177. For contemporary riding costume, see Baillie-Grohman (as in n. 65), fig. 109, The Elector and Electress of Bavaria Hunting (July) (ca. 1603-9), tapestry designed by Pieter de Witte, known as Candito; and fig. 93, David Vinckboons, Hawking (1612).
80. Liedtke, 206, n. 29, reports that Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann and Martha Wolff remarked on the anachronistic costumes of the riders and related them to van Orley's hunting tapestries. See also Balis, 54-55.
81. A. M. Bonenfant-Feytmans, "Antoine de Succa et l'historigraphie de son temps," in Les Mémoriaux d'Antoine de Succa, catalogue by M. Comblen-Sonkes et C. Van den Bergen-Patens, Les Primitifs Flamands, III: Contributions à l'étude des Primitifs flamands, Brussels, 1977, 16-20; M. Soenen, "Inventaire analytique des documents relatifs à l'impression et au commerce des livres (1546-1702) contenus dans les cartons 1276-1280 du conseil privé espagnol," Archives Génèral du Royaume, Brussels, 1983, 48, docs. 343 (Jan. 24, 1600) and 347 bis (Mar. 7, 1612). Soenen summarizes the "lettres circulaires," where Jean-Baptiste Grammaye is identified as "historiographe" and "historiographe des Archiducs" respectively. On June 19, 1615, the bishop of Ghent charged Jacques Cornille de Lummen, called de la Marca, to write "l'histoire belgique de nostre temps"; Soenen, 49.
82. Soenen (as in n. 81), 48. Summary of doc. 346: "Acte [July 8, 1609] adressé aux gens de la Chambre des Comptes à Dôle, aux trésoriers et gardes des chartes, à tous abbayes, prieurs, recteurs, prévots, doyens et gardiens des abbayes, prieurés, collèges, chapitres, monastères, hôpitaux . . . situés dans le comté de Bourgogne afin qu'ils donnent libre accès à toutes leurs archives à messire Antoine d'Orival, chanoine de Besançon et à Jean-Baptiste Chassignet, avocat fiscal au siège de Gray, qui ont entrepris l'historie des Comtes de Bourgogne depuis que la province aurait été erigée en comté, généaolgie, suite et succession d'iceux jusques a LL. AA., fondation des abbayes, prieurés, collèges de chanoines, couvents et aultres maison pieuses."
83. Bonenfant-Feytmans (as in n. 81), 22-39.
84. G. Parker, The Dutch Revolt (1977) rev. ed., London, 1988, 254. Considerable new information regarding the hunting of wolves in the southern Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries is to be found in Bart de Groof, "De wolf (Canis lupus). Angst en vervolging in de Nederlanden," De Brabantse folklore en geschiedenis, no. 282, June 1994, 125-46. This excellent study, which was brought to my attention by Arnout Balis after my essay had been completed, also discusses at length the hunting legislation of the archdukes in connection with the regional proliferation of wolves brought about by war and rural depopulation. And it, too, associates the hunting legislation with A Wolf and Fox Hunt, using this as illustration. De Groof, however, discounts the foxes in Rubens's picture and does not associate their presence with the 1613 hunting law, as I do below. De Groof's study should also be consulted for its very informative account of popular and folk attitudes regarding wolves in the Netherlands, a subject that I do not treat in this essay.
85. V. Brants, Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas: Règne d'Albert et Isabelle, 1597-1621, Brussels, 1912, II, 124-25.
86. Ibid., 186-96.
87. For earlier hunting legislation in the Spanish Netherlands, and in Brabant specifically, see Placcaerten ende ordonnantien vande Hertoghen van Brabandt Princen van dese Nederlanden, Brussels, 1664, III, 508 ff.; A. Galesloot, La Maison de chasse des ducs de Brabant et de l'ancienne cour de Bruxelles précédées d'un aperçu sur l'ancienne droit de chasse, Brussels,1854, passim; and A. Faider, Histoire du droit de chasse et de la législation sur la chasse en Belgique, en France, en Angleterre, en Allemagne, en Italie et en Hollande, Académie royale des sciences des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, Mémoires couronnés XXVII, Brussels, 1876, 46-122, 155-65.
88. Faider (as in n. 87), 87, 93.
89. Brants (as in n. 85), 191. The other two articles, 59 and 60, read: "59. Mais que si quelqu'un fût trouvé seul dedans nos franches forests, bois et garennes, ou leur lisieres hors des chemins ordinaires et usitez, avec harquebuse, ou semblables instruments, sous pretexte de poursuivre renards ou loups, il ne sera excusé des amendes cy-dessus statuées. 60. Item, comme nous entendons, qu'aucuns s'advancent de faire au bois et campaignes grands puits, fossez et louveriers, qu'ils scavent dextrement couvrir de feuillages, ou autrement, sous pretexte de s'en servir à prendre loups, esquelles toutesfois pourroient aussi tomber les sauvagines, voires les veneurs, et autres passans, nous avons expressement défendu, et défendons, par cesdites presentes, à qui que ce soit, de faire tels puits ou fossez, à peine de fourfaire soixante royaux d'amende."
90. Brants (as in n. 85), 191: "58. Quant à la chasse du renard et du loup, comme icelle a de tout temps êté permise, nous la permettons aussi par cesdites presentes, tant en hyver sur la neige, qu'en autre saison, moyennant qu'elle soit dressée en presence, ou par consentement de nos commis, ayans de ce la charge ordinaire, ou par ceux de nos vassaux, qui ont privilege et pouvoir de chasser avec meute et chiens, trompe, et bonne troupe de gens, pour faire la huée, et auront les veneurs de chacun renard ou loup ainsi pris, la salaire de tous temps à ce statué, à laquelle fin les commis, ou ayans de ce charge, feront annuellement le tour du loup, chacun a sa province, et seront tenues les communautez et villages leur fournir les dépens de bouche, et non plus."
91. Cynegetic manuals cite the following seasons for the wolf and the fox: William Twiti (1327), the fox, Sept. 25-Mar. 25; Roy Modus et Royne Racio (1354-79), the wolf, Jan.; Phoebus (1387-91), the wolf, Sept. 25-Mar. 25; The Book of St. Albans alone places the seasons for the wolf and the fox concurrently, that is, Sept. 8-Mar. 25; du Fouilloux (1561) recommends Jan.-Mar. for fox hunting, because "le bois est plus clair: car la fueille en est cheue." See Cummins, 135, for further discussion regarding hunting seasons.
92. Brants (as in n. 85), 189: "29. Et comme la chasse qui est permise à nos vassaux leur doit seulement servir de passetemps, sans en abuser, notre intention est qu'ils n'en usent, sinon en saison et hors des lieux défendus, et avec levriers, chiens courans et la grande trompe, et que ce soit au surplus de poil avec poil et de plume avec plume, qu'en aucuns lieux on appelle chasse noble, si ce n'est qu'ils ayent privilege plus ample et expresse au contraire."
93. Seals, used to authenticate documents and to indicate authority, included the owner's name, title, and possessions. For the seals illustrated in Fig. 33, see R. Laurent, Sigillographie, Archives Générales du Royaume et Archives de l'Etat dans les Provinces, Centre d'Etudes Pratiques pour les Sciences Auxiliaires de l'Histoire, Brussels, 1985, 87, 97, 104. For the social contextualization of seals, see B. Bedos Rezak, "Medieval Seals and the Structure of Chivalric Society," in The Study of Chivalry, Resources and Approaches, ed. H. Chickering and T. H. Seiler, Kalamazoo, Mich., 1988, 313-72; and B. Bedos-Rezak, "Civic Liturgies and Urban Records in Northern France, 1100-1400," in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, ed. B. A. Hanawalt and K. L. Reyerson, Mineapolis/London, 1994, 34-55.
94. Rooses-Ruelens (as in n. 2), 93.
95. Liedtke, I, 202: "Paintings of this size usually hung in the largest room of a very large house."
96. Rooses-Ruelens (as in n. 2), 97.
97. See Biographie nationale belge, I, 1866, cols. 388-401 (L. P. Gachard); and Balis, 22-25.
98. L. P. Gachard, Histoire politique et diplomatique de Pierre-Paul Rubens, Brussels, 1877, 247.
99. Ibid., 247-51; and Balis, 22-25.
100. Balis, 25, comments: "Rather surprisingly in view of his quarrel with Rubens, one of the works he brought there [to Madrid] was the latter's Wolf Hunt."
101. H. Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique des origines à nos jours, 3d ed., Brussels, 1923, II, 490; Parker (as in n. 84), 255.
102. G. de Tervarent, Attributs et symboles dans l'art profane, 1450-1600, Geneva,1958, col. 252; B. Rowland, Animals with Human Faces: A Guide to Animal Symbolism, London, 1974, 161-67; Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Rome, 1603), repr., Hildesheim/New York, 1970, 428.
103. Lomazzo (as in n. 49); Ulisse Aldrovandi, De Quadrupedibus Digitalis Vivaparis, Bonn, 1645, 160.
104. R. Mousnier, The Institutions of France under the Absolute Monarchy, 1598-1789, trans. B. Pearce, Chicago, 1979, I, 123.
105. C. Loyseau, A Treatise of Orders and Plain Dignities, ed. and trans. H. A. Lloyd, Cambridge, 1994, 121-22.
106. Ibid., 124.
107. From the picture's inception, this figure was identified as a knight in Rubens's imagination, as the Windsor drawing, the only surviving preparatory sketch, attests. There the rider is shown in armor. Balis, 101,105, sees this drawing as a sketch for another subject which Rubens realized could be adapted to a hunting scene.
108. Loyseau (as in n. 105), 102, 104. Similar pronouncements are voiced by other social commentators around this time: e.g.,, the Venetian ambassador to France reports: "The true profession of the nobility and the one which is most useful to the people and the king is that of warfare," while Montaigne writes: "The proper and only and essential place for the nobility in France is the military profession"; quoted from D. Bitton, The French Nobility in Crisis, 1560-1640, Stanford,1969, 26.
109. Xenophon, Cynegeticus, 12.1-9; Xenophon, Scripta Minora, trans. E. C. Marchant, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass./London, 1971 , 443-44.
110. See R. F. Millen and R. E. Wolf, Heroic Deeds and Mystic Figures: A New Reading of Rubens' "Life of Maria de' Medici", Princeton, N.J., 1989, 166.
111. V. Brants, Albert et Isabelle: Etudes d'histoire politique et sociale, Louvain/Paris, 1910, 18-20. Albrecht applied to Philip III in 1599 for the title of king, and after being turned down revived his quest in 1609 with an application to the pope, who also refused him.
112. A similar rationale led to the genealogical portrait gallery Henri IV commissioned in 1607 to decorate the Petite Galerie of the Louvre. The artist assigned this task, Jacob Bunel, was required to portray "everything lifelike, in the dress and clothing of the time of each reign and according to the originals which Bunel will be provided with and which he will locate by his own diligence and efforts." This project recalls the work that Antoine de Succa carried out for the archdukes during the same decade. See H. Ballon, The Paris of Henri IV, New York/Cambridge, Mass., 1991, 50-52.
113. De Clamorgan, 110.
114. De Clamorgan, 124v. For the consequences of the Fall for animals, see J. Prest, The Garden of Eden: The Botanic Garden and the Re-Creation of Paradise, New Haven/London, 1981,16-17; Thomas (as in n. 29), 22, 289; and Koslow (as in n. 30), 212.
115. See Bitton (as in n. 108); G. Huppert, Les Bourgeois Gentilhommes: An Essay on the Definition of Elites in Renaissance France, Chicago/London, 1977, 88, and passim; Mousnier (as in n. 104); and H. K. F. van Nierop, The Nobility of Holland: From Knights to Regents, 1500-1650, trans. M. Ultee, Cambridge, 1993.
