Game piece with poultry

The still-life painting Game piece with poultry (1611) by Clara Peeters is documented as part of the Spanish Royal Collection by 1666, when it appears in inventories of the Real Alcázar in Madrid.

It later entered the holdings of Ferdinand VII of Spain, whose ownership is recorded in Wikidata. The work has remained in public institutions, now housed in the Museo del Prado, Madrid, where it continues to be exhibited as part of the museum’s permanent collection of Peeters’s works.

The painting is held by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, inventoried as oil on panel, 52 × 71 cm, accessioned within the Spanish Royal Collection.

First documented in 1666 in the inventories of the Spanish Royal Collection at the Real Alcázar of Madrid, the work was later included in the 2016 exhibition El arte de Clara Peeters at the Museo del Prado, the first solo show dedicated to a woman artist at the museum. It remains on permanent display among four works by Peeters in the Prado’s collection.

Scholars regard this 1611 panel as one of Clara Peeters' finest achievements and an early example of the hunting still-life genre. The composition's exquisite rendering of textures and harmonious brown tones suggests it was created for an elite clientele interested in exotic porcelain, shells, and falconry. Technical analysis via infrared reflectography reveals underdrawings in the shells and bird beaks, alongside characteristic compositional adjustments, such as the delayed addition of a bird's head beneath a basket wing.

Historically, the work entered the Spanish Royal Collection by 1666 and remained in the Museo del Prado, where it featured prominently in the 2016 exhibition dedicated to Peeters, the museum's first monographic show for a female artist. By 2018, the painting stood as one of only six works by women on display at the institution, underscoring its significance within the broader context of art historical representation.

Clara Peeters's Game Piece with Poultry (1611) is regarded as one of her finest works and is counted among the earliest still lifes devoted to game. Its inclusion in the 2016 exhibition El arte de Clara Peeters at the Museo del Prado marked the first monographic show devoted to a woman artist at the museum, positioning the painting within a broader reassessment of Peeters's contribution to early seventeenth-century Flemish still life. The work has also served as a touchstone for discussions of female painters in the Prado's holdings: as of March 2018, it was one of only six paintings by women then on display at the museum, alongside canvases by Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi, underscoring its continuing role in highlighting the presence of women artists in the Spanish royal collection.

Clara Peeters, a Flemish artist active in the early 17th century, completed Game piece with poultry in 1611. This oil painting exemplifies the Dutch Golden Age tradition of still life, a genre in which Peeters specialized. The work presents an arrangement of dead game birds, including a rooster and smaller fowl, alongside a live Eurasian Sparrowhawk. It is currently housed in the collection of the Museo del Prado in Madrid.