The Capture of a Swarm of Bees in a Farmyard

Prints and Drawings

1578/1605

Joannes Stradanus, called Giovanni Stradano
Flemish, 1523-1605

Primarily active in the court of Florence and patronized by the Medici, Johannes Stradanus designed tapestries depicting hunting, agriculture, and animal husbandry. Stradanus’s familiarity with these subjects is underscored in The Capture of a Swarm of Bees, in which he used remarkable precision to describe the removal of a beehive in the central foreground. His mastery of detail is especially evident in the protective headgear and clothing of the figures. A print based on this sheet forms part of a series of over 100 subjects illustrating various types of hunting and farm work.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Jan van der Straet
Title: The Capture of a Swarm of Bees in a Farmyard
Place: Flanders (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1578–1605
Medium: Pen and brown ink and blue watercolor, with opaque white watercolor, over black chalk, on cream laid paper, incised with a stylus for transfer, laid down on cream laid paper
Inscriptions: Signed recto, lower center, in pen and brown ink: “Stradanus”; inscribed verso, lower left, in graphite: “XII”; lower center, in graphite: “34”; lower right, in graphite: “M225029”
Dimensions: Primary support: 19.6 × 28 cm (7 3/4 × 11 1/16 in.); Secondary support: 21 × 29.1 cm (8 5/16 × 11 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Dorothy Braude Edinburg to the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection
Reference Number: 2013.1031
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C.F.G.R. Schwerdt, Hunting, Hawking, Shooting, illustrated in a catalogue of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings collected by C.F.G.R. Schwerdt, (London, 1928), vol. II, p. 227, no. 37;
C. F. G. R. Schwerdt, Hunting, Hawking, Shooting, illustrated in a catalogue of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings collected by C. F. G. R. Schwerdt, vol. 3 (London: Waterlow and Sons, 1928; reprint, Hildescheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1985), vol. III, p. 221, no. 12.
Marijn Schapelhouman, Tekeningen van oude meesters: de verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, exh. cat. Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, May 8–July 25, 1993 (Zwolle: Waanders, 1993), pp. 16–17; pp. 230–231, cat. 4 (ill).
Alessandra Baroni Vannucci, Jan Van der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano: Flandrus pictor et inventor (Jandi Sapi, 1997), p. 256, no. 343.
The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450–1700, Johannes Stradanus, 3 vols, Compiled by Marjolein Leesberg, ed. Huigen Leeflang (Ouderkerk aan den Ijssel: Sound & Vision Publishers, 2008, in cooperation with the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam), III, no. 457, p. 145.

Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Tekeningen van oude meesters: De verzameling Jacobus A. Klaver, Rijksmuseum, 8 May–25 July 1993, p. 16–17, cat. 4 (ill).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, Nov. 9, 2002–Feb. 2, 2003, hors cat.
Art Institute of Chicago, Drawings in Dialogue: Old Master Through Modern, The Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, June 3–July 30, 2006, p. 42, cat. 17 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Thrill of the Chase: Drawings for the Harry B. and Bessie K. Braude Memorial Collection, Mar. 15–June 15, 2014, no cat.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Rubens, Rembrandt, and Drawing in the Golden Age”, September 28, 2019 - January 5, 2020, pp. 196-97 (ill.), 199, 201, 316, cat. 70, cat. by Victoria Sancho Lobis, et. al.

William A. Baillie-Grohman (1851–1921), London and Château de Matzen, Brixlegg, Tyrol [stamp (Lugt 370), verso, lower right, in black]; by descent to his wife, Mrs. Baillie-Grohman; sold, Sotheby’s, London, May 14, 1923, lot 161, to Charles Francis George Richard Schwerdt (1862–1939), Old Alresford House, Hants, England; sold, Sotheby’s, London, June 27, 1939, lot 1305. Marcel Jeanson, Paris; sold, Sotheby’s, Monaco, Mar. 1, 1987, lot 518, to Katrin Bellinger Kunsthandel, Munich. Jacobus A. Klaver [stamp (not in Lugt), verso, lower right, in brown], acquired in 1988 (Schapelhouman); sold, Sotheby’s, Amsterdam, May 10, 1994, lot 14. Sold, Sotheby’s, New York, Jan. 23, 2001, to Dorothy Braude Edinburg, Brookline, Mass.; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2013.

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