An older man at left in red raises his hat toward a central table chaotically overflowing with dead game, fruits, and vegetables. The wings of dead birds and limbs of animals are splayed out at dramatic angles; a deer at center is suspended by his back legs. Live birds and a cat animate the scene.

Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market

1614

Frans Snyders (Flemish, 1579-1657)

Flanders

This Flemish market stall overflowing with dead game is enlivened by fighting roosters, an aggressive cat, and a pickpocket. An early example of Frans Snyders’s animated combination of highly ornamental still-life elements with secondary figures and a low viewpoint, this scene might have adorned the dining room of an aristocratic collector. Snyders was the leading Flemish painter of monumental still lifes. He regularly collaborated with his fellow Antwerp artist Peter Paul Rubens, contributing fruits and animals to Rubens’s compositions.

Oil on canvas

Painting and Sculpture of Europe