Dogs Fighting over a Flayed Ox's Head
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w x d: Måleri 113 x 206 x 4 cm h x w x d: Ram 131,5 x 194,5 x 4,8 cm
Inventory numberNM 636
Other titlesTitle (sv): Hundar slåss om ett flått oxhuvud Title (en): Dogs Fighting over a Flayed Ox's Head
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 187: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of a single piece of densely woven, plain-weave fabric. The original fabric support has been lined and mounted on a non-original stretcher. The original support has been slightly trimmed at the top, and the tacking edges have been cropped on all sides. Cusping occurs along the left, right and bottom edges, indicating that the present dimensions are approximately those of the original support. The support was prepared with a thick, smooth, ground that hides the weave structure of the fabric, followed by a medium grey imprimatura that extends to the edges. Paint is applied quite thinly in the area of the greyish background wall, more thickly in the dogs’ fur and in the ox’s head, with rich impastos in the white and bright yellow highlights (dog collar). In the fur of the seated dog individual short strokes of thick white and yellowish brown paint were scumbled over a medium grey (chest, stomach) or dark yellowish brown ochre underpaint. This dog and the ox’s head were both left in reserve when the background was filled in, after which the slight ‘gap’ between these central motifs and the surrounding area was ‘closed up’ using long strokes that hug the contours. The head and legs of the dog on the left were painted over the greyish background. A layer of slightly discoloured old varnish is present. The paint layers show extensive abrasion and have been noticeably flattened through the lining process. Retouching covers abrasion and losses of the paint and ground layers along the edges, especially the left and bottom edges. Tiny flaked losses occur throughout the paint layers. Extensive scattered retouches occur overall, but are mainly concentrated in the area of the greyish background wall and the brick floor, with just a few in the seated dog and the ox’s head. Several horizontal scratches through the paint and ground layers, mostly concentrated to the right half of the painting, have been repaired and retouched. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1926, 1948 and 1975. Provenance: Possibly purchased in Holland in 1652 by J. C. Danneux from the painter-art dealer Anthonie Waterloo for Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie; Magnus Gabriel de la Gardie, by 1652 (inv. 1652/1653 as “1 Stort D[ito][eg. Kiöckstycke] uthan ram der på sitter een hund haar färskt köt och frijar det för 2 andre hundar”); probably purchased at the auction of the De la Gardie estate in 1690 by Karl XI, Kungsör; Gustav III (as Crown Prince) 1761, no. 4; Gustav III 1792, no. 366 (as Snyders); KM 1816, no. 178. Exhibited: Läckö, 1999, room 206 no. 1; Läckö, 2003, no. 147; Stockholm 2010, no. 90. Bibliography: Granberg 1929–1931, II, pp. 62, 136, 207; Müllenmeister 1981, pp. 61, 63 no. 416; Robels 1989, pp. 113, 302 no. 189a. This painting shows a violent confrontation between two dogs in a pantry or kitchen alcove. The hound on the right has just broken free of its collar and chain, identifying it as a member of the household, in its eagerness to seize some meat in the form of an ox’s head and hoof, tumbling out of an overturned basket. The dog’s forelegs are planted defiantly on the stolen meat in a posture of jealous possession, as it turns, snarling, on the intruder whose head and paws appear at the far left. The painting is a smaller-size workshop replica of a signed original by Frans Snyders now in Brussels (Gallerie Jan de Maere).1 Another workshop replica is in Maribor (former Jugoslavia),2 and three additional, slightly differing, copies are known.3 The type of imaginary animal genre scene depicted in the present work, in which domestic animals, such as dogs, cats, pet monkeys or parrots, are shown engaging in unruly behaviour while the proprietor or servants are absent, originated with Snyders.4 While anecdotal animal scenes do occur in earlier art, for example, dogs contesting a bone, or a dog and a cat fighting, their actions are always marginal to the main narrative that is the picture’s real subject. The novelty of Snyders’ animal genre imagery, then, lies in shifting the focus to the animals themselves, without a human presence, situating the scene in a household, and showing pure instinctual behaviour. “Neither sentimentalized nor caricatured”, according to Koslow (1995) “the animals are represented without any hint of anthropomorphism, their behaviour being true to their bestial nature”. Snyders in fact created a new type of animal picture entirely comparable to the genre scene. Not only is the subject original, but the chosen format is innovative as well: Snyders frequently uses something akin to a snapshot view, sometimes showing only an animal’s head, chest and paws, or even the head alone. Robels (1989) and Koslow (1995) believe the interpretative key to Snyders’ animal genre pictures can probably be found in the popular proverb or adage.5 His dog pictures, thus, evoke traditional moral issues of greed and opportunism, embodied in sayings such as: “As greedy as a dog”; “A dog will endure no companions in the kitchen”; “While a dog gnaws a bone, he hates his fellow”; “The dog is got into the porridge pot”; “He who comes too late finds the dog in the pot”, etc. While Robels would characterize Snyders’ pictures as simply anecdotal, amusing, and, at the same time, moralizing, Koslow argues that they can also be read as political and social allegory. In her view, using the kitchen to signify the household, or mesnage, also in its broader meaning of the management of the state, Snyders shows what happens when authority neglects its responsibilities. In the absence of supervision, in the present picture a hunting hound plunders the mesnage, impelled by the ungovernable appetites of greed and gluttony. Its action, in turn, incites rebellion in the household, whose members will fight for their share of the spoils. If only the proprietor or his servants, the symbols of reason and authority, had stayed at their post and kept a vigilant eye on the household, passions would not have become inflamed and the “rebellion” could have been avoided. Like his fable paintings, Snyders’ animal genre pictures found particular favour with 17th-century Spanish collectors, who also prized animal fiction, such as Cervantes’ philosophical “exemplary novel” Colloquy of the Dogs (before 1609).6 Snyders’ animal genre pictures, do not, however, illustrate such narratives or Aesopic fables, nor are the animals depicted characters with known identities. Snyders’ Brussels painting (Gallerie Jan de Maere), of which the present work is a replica, has been identified by Balis as an item inventoried 1655 in the paintings collection of Diego Mexía, marquis of Leganés, Snyders’ foremost Spanish patron, there described as “a snarling dog on the head and feet of a cow which have tumbled out of a basket, with the head of another dog, and a collar attached to a chain”.7 The bloody head of an ox or steer whose horns have been removed and which has been entirely flayed, except for the muzzle, apparently painted directly from a model, was a frequent motif in Snyders’ dog pictures, and also figures prominently in his Butcher in a Kitchen of the 1630s in Moscow (Pushkin Museum). Snyders appropriated the motif from earlier still life painters, such as Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer,8 and no doubt regarded its rendering as an exhibition of his own skill in the spirit of aemulatio. CF 1 Oil on canvas, 150 x 250 cm, Brussels, Gallerie Jan de Maere. Formerly Coll. Albert G. de Berghe, Brussels; sold at Brussels, St. Gudule, 7–8 June 1906, lot 119; see Robels 1989, cat. no. 189. Note that the Brussels original, which is considerably larger than the Stockholm replica, shows more of the brick-laid platform on which the main dog is seated, including the edge of the platform in the foreground. 2 Oil on canvas, 121 x 180 cm, Maribor, Pokrajinski Muzej, inv. no. 1102; see Robels 1989, cat. no. 189b. 3 Oil on canvas, 116 x 178 cm, sold at Antwerp, M. Bernaerts, 12–13 May 1987, lot 670; oil on canvas, 122 x 139.7 cm, Stanford University Art Gallery, inv. no. 11863; and oil on canvas, 128 x 198.5 cm, present location unknown; see Robels 1989, cat.nos. 189c, 189d, 189e. 4 Cf. Robels 1989, pp. 42–44, 108–113, 292–303, and cat.nos. 176–190; and Koslow 1995, pp. 271–283. 5 See Robels 1989, pp. 43ff, and Koslow 1995, pp. 276–277. 6 See Barghahn 1979, p. 234, cited by Koslow 1995, p. 274. 7 See López Navío 1962: “153 un perro sobre la caneza y pies de una baca que derriba de una cesta y gruñe con la caneca de otro perro y tiene un collar atado de una cadena de mano de Snyders. Y lo taso en 150”; and Robels 1989, cat.nos. 189, V35. According to Koslow 1995, p. 274, Balis recognized the number on the lower left of the Brussels canvas as being identical to that in the 1655 inventory of the Leganés collection. A related painting by Snyders listed in the Leganés inventory is the following: “103: a dog with the entrails of a cow and two other dogs, with only their heads showing, who try to take it from him”. The Buen Retiro had a similar picture: “566: dog with the head of a cow”. 8 The head of an ox appears in Pieter Aertsen’s earliest market scene, the 1551 Meat Stall (Uppsala, University of Uppsala), as well as in A Kitchen in a Rural Inn by Joachim Beuckelaer, dated 1568. Jacques II de Gheyn apparently considered the portrayal of such a head a tour de force, since he dated a drawing of the head of a calf 1599 and signed it in gold. See I.Q. van Regteren Altena, Jacques de Gheyn: Three Generations, The Hague 1983, I, pp. 65–66, II, p. 131.[End]
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