Artwork
En hane sidder på en kurv fyldt med korn i stald, bag ved blå himmel
En hane sidder på en kurv fyldt med korn i stald, bag ved blå himmel is an unspecified painting. It dates from 1801 and is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst. The work depicts a rooster perched atop a woven basket brimming with grain, situated within a rustic stable.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The pairing of the rooster with a grain-filled basket evokes traditional rural and agricultural motifs associated with farmyard life and provisioning.
The painting depicts a rooster perched atop a basket filled with grain inside a stable or barn, set against a blue sky. Classified as animal art, the composition brings together three principal elements catalogued in the work's iconography: the rooster, the livestock housing, and the basket. The pairing of the rooster with a grain-filled basket evokes traditional rural and agricultural motifs associated with farmyard life and provisioning.
The stable setting, combined with the open blue sky beyond, situates the scene in a domesticated agricultural environment, framing the bird as a guardian or symbol of the farmstead's yield.
The rooster itself carries longstanding symbolic weight as an emblem of vigilance, dawn, and fertility, while the overflowing basket of grain reinforces themes of abundance and harvest. Together, these elements present a celebration of rural prosperity and the rhythms of farm life.
Technique & Style
The painting is executed in oil on canvas, measuring 66.0 cm in height and 55.0 cm in width. Its handling emphasizes smooth modeling of forms with subtle transitions between light and shadow, typical of late eighteenth-century European animalier traditions. The composition balances naturalistic detail in the rooster and basket with a simplified, planar rendering of the stable interior and sky, avoiding atmospheric depth.
The palette is restrained, dominated by earthy tones in the rooster and basket, contrasted with a flat, muted blue sky that flattens the spatial field.
History & Provenance
The painting dates to 1801, according to both its cataloguing record and the Wikidata entry for the work. It is held in the collection of the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, which is listed as both the owning collection and the current location. No information is available regarding the original commission, the chain of ownership prior to the museum's acquisition, or the circumstances of its creation.
Overview
The work depicts a rooster perched atop a woven basket brimming with grain, situated within a rustic stable. The bird faces left, its plumage rendered with careful gradations of tone, while a modest arched doorway opens onto a pale blue sky beyond the timbered wall.
Context
Created during a period when artists frequently turned to domestic interiors to explore light and form, the work reflects contemporary interest in depicting ordinary labor and the natural world within a controlled studio setting. Its modest scale and focus on a single animal align it with similar studies of livestock in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Artist & collection
