Plate 37: Three Waterfowl with Two Nightingales(?) Perched in Citrus Trees

Joris Hoefnagel

National Gallery of Art

This is an image of birds and fruit. It shows three ducks or similar waterfowl on a grassy and watery ground in the lower part of the composition, and two smaller birds perched on branches of a lemon tree in the upper section. Lemons, some ripe and others still growing, hang above the birds. The painting is reminiscent of works by early botanists or ornithologists who documented wildlife. It is marked with Latin inscriptions and a Roman numeral on the right.