(1450/60-1516) The Large Elephant with a Fantastic Castle on its Back, etching and engraving, on laid pape, watermark Big crowned escutcheon with lily and star; inscribed "Hieronymus Bos Inve." in the plate, with the Latin inscription "Temeritatis Svbiti Vt Vehementes Svnt Impvlvus Quorum Ictibvs Hominvm Mentes Concvssae, Nex Sva Pericvla Respicere, Nec Aliena Facta Ivsta Aestimatione Prosqvi Valent." at lower margin, 39,7 x 53,2 cm, trimmed within the framing lines, Bartsch 7 III (of III), Hollstein 43 III (of III), mounted, framed, (Sch)

Very excellent, even and precise print of the third state (of III), and after the removal of the French inscription "Au Palais à Paris/ Paules de la Houveescud. 1601". The present engraving is perhaps a free copy after an engraving by Alaert du Hameel (1478-1506), which may go back to a lost painting or drawing by Hieronymus Bosch. According to Friedländer (1927, p. 129b) a painting by Bosch or one of his followers with the same title was in the collection of Philipp II. The painting does not exist, similarities of compositions by Alaert with the style by Bosch may suggest that an original drawing by Bosch may have served as model. Several copies of the painting on canvas exist. They give evidence of the great popularity of the motif. (Koldeweij 2001, S. 16).
The print which was published in the mid-16th century by Hieronymus Cock (1507-1570), was presumably executed by an anonymous master of the Sint-Joriskermis; the addition of the artist’s name in the inscription "Hieronymus Bos Inve." may have helped the sales. The engraving was again published in 1601 by Paul de la Houve (1575-1643) and the plate was completed with the editor’s address. The plate was again published by an anonymous editor at the beginning of the 17th century; the Parisian address and the date were erased then. A comparable impression of the same edition is preserved  in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

Provenance: Private collection, Austria

Literature: Compare: Max J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, V (Geertgen van Harlem und Hyronimus Bosch), Berlin 1927, p. 129b); Hollstein, J.H.W., Dutch and Flemish etchings, engravings and woodcuts, Vol. III (Bosch), No. 43, p. 147 ; Le siècle de Bruegel: La peinture en Belgique au XVIe siècle, exh. cat. Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Brussels 1963, No. 336; Jerome Cock éditeur d’estampes et graveur, 1507?-1570, exh. cat. Bibliothèque Royale Albert I, Brussels 1970, No. 107; Timothy Riggs, Hieronymus Cock. Printmaker and Publisher, New York 1977, No. 11; Jos Koldeweij (Ed.), Hieronymus Bosch. Das Gesamtwerk, exh. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boymans van Beuningen, September 1st – November 11th, 2001, Stuttgart 2001, p. 16, Fig.10.