The art of still life painting is a celebrated part of Dutch culture, but before still life emerged, there were illustrators who delicately illuminated handwritten manuscripts with images of flora and fauna to add emotional power to a written work.One of the most celebrated practitioners of this style was Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1601). In the 1590s the Emperor Rudolf II commissioned Hoefnagel to add his illuminations to the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, a mid-16th-century manuscript on the art of calligraphy by Georg Bocskay. The page reproduced here is known as Damselfly, Carnation, Insect, Caterpillar, Ladybird, English Walnut, and Marine Mollusk.
