Series of Prints with Flowers and Animals in a Landscape c. 1600 - 1605

Johann Hogenberg created this print, "Series of Prints with Flowers and Animals in a Landscape," around the turn of the 17th century. During this period, Europe's relationship to the wider world was being reshaped by exploration and colonization. Hogenberg’s composition places the viewer in an imagined landscape, mingling the exotic with the familiar. The juxtaposition of a leopard, rendered with both curiosity and a hint of fear, alongside recognizable European flora, speaks to the era's burgeoning interest in natural history and the desire to classify and contain the unknown. Look closely. The leopard is posed almost as a curiosity, an object of study rather than a creature with its own agency and identity. How might the perception of this animal change if we understood it not as a specimen but as a symbol of freedom and wildness? This print serves as a reminder of how we project our own cultural biases and desires onto the natural world.