Cook at a Kitchen Table with Dead Game on it - Frans Snyders

Painting Detail

Cook at a Kitchen Table with Dead Game on it
Artist: Frans Snyders
Medium: Painting, Oil on canvas, 171x173 cm
Date: Between 1634 and 1637
Genre: Still Life
Source: Collection of Johann Gotzkowski, Berlin, 1764

This still life, which demonstrates great virtuosity of execution, presents one of Snyders's favourite motifs - dead game. The artist has depicted here both trophies of the hunt and slaughtered domestic fowl: on the table we see a grey heron, several partridges and a bunch of small song-birds. In the large wicker basket there are snipes, a pheasant and a partridge. A bittern is hanging on the wall. The cook with a large kitchen knife in his hand is leaning over a low table and threatening a cat, which is trying to pull the heron down off the table. It is likely that the cook has been painted by Jan Boeckhorst.

This is a companion painting to the work Maidservant with a Boy in a Fruit Shop.