Terra / Aqua / Ignis / Aer

Jean Le Clerc was a Parisian print publisher, engraver, and dealer active in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This complete set of four engravings, representing Terra, Aqua, Ignis, and Aer, was issued in Paris around 1602 by Le Clerc after Adriaen Collaert’s earlier Four Elements series, first published in Antwerp in 1600. Collaert’s engravings were based on designs by the Flemish painter Maerten de Vos. Le Clerc’s versions translate Collaert’s oval compositions into rectangular plates; three carry Le Clerc’s excudit, while Aer also bears the monogram “AB” at lower right.

The four elements — earth, water, fire, and air — were central to classical and medieval natural philosophy. In this series they are presented through allegorical figures, landscape settings, biblical episodes, symbolic animals, and Latin verses by Cornelis Kiliaan, a corrector at Christopher Plantin’s publishing house in Antwerp and an important Dutch lexicographer. Terra, or Earth, appears as a seated female figure holding a cornucopia overflowing with fruit, vegetables, and grain, while lifting a bouquet of flowers in her other hand. A walled city rests upon her head, and animals, plants, and cultivated abundance surround her. In the background, God forms Adam from the earth, referring to Genesis 2: 7 and linking Terra not only to fertility and material abundance, but also to the creation of human life. Cornelis Kiliaan’s inscription presents Earth as the firm central element, bearing grass, flowers, fruits, and all that sustains living creatures: TERRA parens, qua non elementum eft firmius vllum, / In media mundi parte locata manet. / Fert gramen, flores, laetas fert denique fruges, / Et reliqua vnde animans vivere quoda queat. “Mother Earth, the firmest of the elements, remains at the centre of the world. She brings forth grass, flowers, abundant fruits, and all else by which living creatures are sustained.” Aqua, or Water, is seated among reeds, pouring water and fish from an urn and shell. The composition contrasts two watery settings: a seascape with ships, whales, sea birds, and storm clouds, and a river scene showing the baptism of Christ in the Jordan. The imagery echoes Genesis 1, where the waters precede the ordering of creation and bring forth living creatures, while the baptism scene presents water as a sacramental medium of renewal. Kiliaan’s inscription presents water as origin, nourishment, food, and passageway for ships: Rerum AQVA principium, chaos, et fons est, et origo, / Frugibus unde vigor Semibusque venit. / Squamigeros homini pifces alimenta ministrat / Et quo nauigi’s tranfeat, aptat iter. “Water is the beginning of all things, chaos, source, and origin, from which vigour comes to fruits and seeds. It provides scaly fish as food for humanity and prepares the path by which ships may pass.”

Ignis, or Fire, appears as a male figure surrounded by flames, holding thunderbolts and associated with Jupiter. A salamander rests beneath his foot, recalling the ancient and medieval belief that the creature could live in fire, a tradition invoked by Saint Augustine in The City of God. In the right middle ground, the engraving shows the Old Testament story of Elijah and the priests of Baal. According to 1 Kings 18, Elijah challenged the priests of Baal to call down fire upon a sacrifice; when they failed, Elijah drenched his own altar with water and prayed to the God of Israel. Divine fire then descended and consumed the sacrifice. The scene presents fire not only as destructive and volatile, but also as revelatory and divinely sanctioned. Kiliaan’s inscription similarly contrasts excessive and moderated fire: IGNIS, seu flammans, coelo qui proximus, Aether; / Materia altisono fulminis unde Iovi: / Flammarum immodicus vi multa uritq[ue] necatque; / Ast modicus grato multa calore fovet. “Fire, or the blazing ether nearest to heaven, is the substance from which Jove’s thunderbolt is made. When excessive, it burns and destroys many things by the force of flames; but when moderate, it nurtures many things with pleasing heat.” Aer, or Air, is seated upon clouds, with hair rising into vapour. The figure holds a chameleon, a creature traditionally believed to live on air alone, while birds fill the sky around him. In the background, the Resurrection of Christ links Aer with ascent, transformation, and the passage between earthly and heavenly realms. Kiliaan’s inscription presents air as mobile, permeable, nourishing, and unstable: Mobilis et rerum per cuncta meabilis AER, / Afflatu alituum promouet omne genus: / Commotus nimbos tempestates que minatur, / Tranquillus terris aequoribusque fauet. “Mobile and able to pass through all things, Air nourishes every kind through the breath of winds. When stirred, it threatens clouds and storms; when calm, it favours lands and seas.”

Through allegory, landscape, biblical narrative, and Kiliaan’s Latin verses, the set shows how early modern printmakers joined natural philosophy, theology, and learned poetry in a compact visual series. Within the collection, it should be read alongside the related Collaert plates Ignis (297) and Aer (308),