Attack on a Standing Bear

c. 1530–36

Pen and brown ink

162 × 207 mm

Praun-, Esterházy collection

These two drawings by Hirsvogel belong to a series of fifty-three stained glass designs by the artist, all kept in Budapest. They feature games, the pursuit and dispatch of quarries (bears, stags, wild boars, wolves, foxes, hares, squirrels, fowls), falconry, and fishing. The drawings, regarded as the era’s most diverse hunting representations, provide an accurate portrayal of sixteenth-century venatic practices, weapons, and garments. Fifteen stained glass paintings have survived, which were carried out after the Budapest drawings. Attack on a Standing Bear seen here served as a model for two stained glass paintings: a rectangular one, to be found in Coburg, and a roundel, presently in a German private collection. A roundel executed after the Squirrel Hunt is today in Erbach Castle, Germany.