Adriaen Collaert, Jan Brueghel and Leguat’s “géant’ – the ongoing longevity of a seventeenth-century avian chimera across science, art and literature

Abstract

ABSTRACT A Collaert image, a propagandist’s misnomer and a traveller’s description combined to create the ‘géant’, a chimera that developed a life of its own that has persisted even after the real bird seen by Huguenot refugee François Leguat was shown to have been a flamingo, and Collaert’s image a rather etiolated purple swamphen (Porphyrio porphyrio). The recent resurrection of the ‘géant’ in separate publications about Adriaen Collaert and Jan Brueghel (in 2010 and 2011, respectively) is discussed in the context of the curious backstory and parallel narratives of this ornithological and literary invention, and highlights the need for greater cross-disciplinary study when a subject crosses scientific, literary and artistic boundaries.