1594
gouache
vellum
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Dominant colour
Plate 65: A Cricket Surrounded by Insects, Including a Ruby-Tailed Wasp is a 1594 gouache by Joris Hoefnagel, a Renaissance work, depicting Insect, held at National Gallery of Art.
This tiny painting shows a cricket in the center, circled by six insects. A ruby-tailed wasp glows in gold and red. The detail is wild for something this small. Hoefnagel painted this in the 1590s. He used watercolor and a special glazing trick to make colors pop. That glazing means thin, see-through layers of paint stacked up. Want to see more like this? Look up Hoefnagel, Joris.
Joris Hoefnagel or Georg Hoefnagel (1542 – 24 July 1601) was a Flemish painter, printmaker, miniaturist, draftsman and merchant.
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