Le combat des oiseaux et des couleuvres

Authentic original engraving executed with burin after a 16th-century drawing by Johannes Stradanus.
Proof on watermarked laid paper, work from the late 16th or early 17th century.
Artists' signatures in the plate.
Latin legend in the lower portion of the engraving.
Manuscript translation in old handwriting below the plate mark: "Le désert d'Appulie nourrit de couleuvres les grues et aussi les cigognes attaquent leurs nichées. Elles engagent le combat avec vigueur de leurs becs et les mordent. Le spectacle est très divertissant pour les colons" ["The desert of Apulia feeds cranes with snakes and also storks attack their broods. They engage in combat vigorously with their beaks and bite them. The spectacle is very entertaining for the colonists"].
Watermark visible by transparency.
The margins of the engraving have been reinforced with small pieces of old laid paper glued to the edges on the verso, otherwise fine condition for this very rare engraving.
Johannes Stradanus, known as Giovanni Stradano or Jan van der Straet, was a Flemish painter and engraver, born in Bruges in 1523 and died in Florence on February 11, 1605.
After beginning to learn painting with his father, and following his father's death, he continued his training in the workshop of Maximiliaan Frank (from 1535 to 1537), then in that of Pieter Aertsen in Antwerp (from 1537 to 1540). In 1545, he was received as a master in the Antwerp painters' guild. He then began a journey across Europe: to France, then to Italy, where he first stayed in Venice before settling in Florence. There he worked for Cosimo I de' Medici and collaborated with Giorgio Vasari on the decoration of the Studiolo of Francesco I de' Medici, and on that of the Clement VII hall in the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1565, he was part of the teams of painters and sculptors charged, under Giorgio Vasari's direction, with creating the gigantic decoration planned for the entry into Florence of Joanna of Austria, on the occasion of her marriage to Francesco I de' Medici. Greatly influenced by the Mannerists, including Michelangelo, Johannes Stradanus contributed to the development of grand Italian history painting. He painted several altarpieces for Florentine churches. He also stayed in Rome from 1550 to 1553 and in Naples in 1576. After a stay in Antwerp in 1578, he devoted a large part of his activity to engraving.
Philippe Galle, born in Haarlem in 1537 and died in Antwerp in March 1612, was a Flemish engraver, member of a famous family of engravers. He practiced copper engraving, drawing, the print trade, publishing and writing. He trained with Hieronymus Cock in Antwerp, where he engraved drawings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, notably the series of the Seven Deadly Sins. He then became the engraver of Maarten van Heemskerck. From 1557, he had his own workshop, which would be frequented by his sons, Theodoor and Cornelis, as well as by his son-in-law, Adriaen Collaert, the Wierix brothers, Hendrick Goltzius, Crispijn de Passe the Elder and other members of the Collaert family. His workshop was at the center of Antwerp engraving production. Philippe Galle created some of his most admirable works on designs by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (The Alchemist, 1558), Jan van der Straet, Frans Floris (The Daughters of Lot) and Gillis Congnet (Aenevm Saecvlvm and the four ages of humanity, 1575).