Optics

Cardinal Federico Borromeo, archbishop of Milan, ordered a set of the four elements from Jan Brueghel, and this is Air, also called Optics. The other three reached Milan before 1618. This one was ordered in 1613, Brueghel's letters suggest he was still at work on it in October 1621, and only in February 1622 did he write that it was finally on its way. Birds crowd the branches and the sky, a woman sits with an armillary sphere, and a small winged boy aims a telescope at the chariots of the sun and moon in the clouds. The plump figures are thought to be by his Antwerp colleague Hendrick van Balen, while Brueghel did the birds, trees and sky. French troops brought the copper panel to Paris after taking Milan in 1796, and Austria did not reclaim it after 1815.