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Jan van der Straet

The Capture of a Swarm of Bees in a Farmyard

1578/1605
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
19.6 × 28 cm (7.7 × 11 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

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

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