Joris Hoefnagel Prints

Four hundred years before macro photography, Joris Hoefnagel was painting beetles at a scale that let you count the segments of a leg. Working for Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, he filled manuscripts with insects, flowers and small animals arranged on bare vellum, each one isolated and studied like a specimen — a cabinet of curiosities on the page.

That isolation is why they still look modern. A single beetle centred on cream paper reads as graphic design, not as a historical document, and a grid of four or six framed together is one of the most striking things you can put on a plain wall.

Explore our natural history prints, our vintage botanical prints and Albrecht Dürer's nature studies.