1614
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market is a 1614 oil by Frans Snyders, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
You see a crowded market stall: dead birds, rabbits, vegetables, and fruit spill across the table. A cat arches its back at two fighting roosters, while a thief slips a hand into someone’s pocket in the background. Snyders painted this for a rich person’s dining room. The low angle makes the food look like it’s tumbling toward you. He often worked with Peter Paul Rubens, adding animals and food to Rubens’s human scenes. Look up *impasto*—the thick, textured brushstrokes that make the feathers and fur feel almost real.
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.
Olléon collection by late 19th century; by family descent to Jean Olléon, Paris until at least 1970 [according to letter from Hella Robels, dated July 31, 1988, in curatorial file]. Galerie Birtschansky, Paris, 1980. Galerie Maurice Segoura, New York, 1981; sold to the Art Institute, 1981.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Het Nederlandse Stilleven 1550-1720, June 19-September 19, 1999, cat. 13; Cleveland Museum of Art as Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands: 1550 - 1720, October 31, 1999-January 9, 2000.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes, and still lifes.
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