Still Life with Dead Game
Artist
Willem van Aelst
(Dutch, 1627 - 1683)
Datelate 1660s
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions53 13/16 × 41 9/16 × 1 in. (136.7 × 105.5 × 2.5 cm)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineMuseum purchase, 1951
Object numberSN655
Still lifes with hunting motifs became popular in Dutch art of the later seventeenth century, as Dutch society grew wealthier and more refined. Hunting was an aristocratic privilege, so depictions of hunting trophies ennobled their owners. Van Aelst created a heightened sense of reality by featuring full-scale representations of the objects he portrayed, as in the life-sized animals here. This kill here includes a hare, a wild turkey, a partridge, and a duck. The hunter’s green velvet pouch sits below the panoply of fur, feathers, and flesh.
On View
On viewLocation
- Museum of Art, Gallery 13, Wall North
Pieter Coecke van Aelst the elder
1520s
