Fight between Eagles
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 164 x 235 cm h x w x d: Ram 182 x 254 x 11 cm
Inventory numberNM 638
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (1804)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Strid mellan örnar Title (en): Fight between Eagles
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 19: Technical notes: The painting’s original support consists of two pieces of densely woven, plain weave, medium-weight fabric, resp. 119.8 cm (left) and 115.0 cm (right) wide, sewn with a vertical seam near centre. The original fabric support has been lined and was mounted on a non-original stretcher in 1955. The original tacking edges have been cropped on all sides. Cusping is visible along the left and right edges. Three tears in the original fabric support in the sky at the upper left and near centre, resp. 10 cm, 20 cm and 38 cm long, have been repaired; another repair, in the form of a 3 x 5 cm patch, occurs at the bottom of the canvas at left of centre. The preparatory layers consist of a whiteish ground followed by a grey imprimatura visible only along the contours of some of the animals, for example, the eagle at the lower left. Paint is applied thickly in mostly opaque layers, with vigorous brushwork in the birds’ plumage and rich impastos in the heron’s white feathers and in the white or bright yellow highlights on the falcon’s claws, around their beaks and on the coiled snake at the lower right. The painting is generally in good condition. A layer of slightly discoloured old varnish is present. The paint layers have become flattened and the weave structure of the fabric support has become visible on the painting’s surface as a result of the lining process. Retouching covers abrasion and extensive flaked losses of paint and ground layers along the edges. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1955 and 1997. Provenance: Karl XI, Kungsör; Gustav III 1791/1792; KM 1804, no. 166; KM 1816, no. 605. Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 46 (as Frans Snyders); Sander IV, p. 74 no. 166 (as copy, possibly after Frans Snyders); Göthe 1887, pp. 247-248 (as copy after Frans Snyders?); Göthe 1893, p. 303 (as copy after Frans Snyders?); Göthe 1900, p. 313; Granberg 1929–31, III, pp. 179–180 (citing article by Lucas von Breda in Stockholmsposten, “Et stort Fogelstycke af Snyders, innehållande en Örn, whilken spänt en Häger”, with the author’s comment “not by Snyders, but probably by Peeter Boel”); NM Cat. 1958, p. 187 (as workshop of Frans Snyders); Robels 1989, p. 467 no. A 218 (as falsely attributed to Frans Snyders). In the centre of this picture, a large eagle, having captured a heron perches triumphantly on its prey, with spread wings and open beak, jealously guarding it against a second eagle on the right, high on the branch of an oak tree, poised to attack. Simultaneous with this encounter are two others: a confrontation between an eagle and a serpent and a life and death struggle between a peregrine falcon and a heron. The eagle on the left, thus, focuses its attention on a writhing snake that emerges from its lair in the right foreground, roused from its hiding place by the nearby tumult. And in the background, at the upper left, a falcon attacks a heron in mid-air. This painting entered the collections of the Nationalmuseum as a work by animal- and still life painter Frans Snyders or his workshop and was considered as such until its present reattribution to the Antwerp artist Pieter Boel, following a suggestion by Robels.1 Boel, who is best known for his hunting scenes and still lifes of dead birds in the tradition of his reputed teachers, Frans Snyders and Jan Fyt, rarely signed or dated his work, making it difficult to establish a chronology. Several of his paintings were later misattributed to the better known artists Snyders and Fyt. The present painting is a variant version of a painting by Boel formerly in Frankfurt (Städelsches Kunstinstitut),2 which was reproduced, in reverse, by the artist himself as part of a set of six original etchings of birds, titled Diversi uccelli.3 The confrontation between the two eagles in the present painting and the third eagle in profile on the left, are identical to those in Boel’s Frankfurt painting, in which the prey is now a roebuck instead of a heron. The eagle in the oak tree at the upper right recurs in a different composition attributed to Boel, showing a confrontation between an eagle and a fox, that was on the British art market in 1989.4 Like some of Boel’s animal- and hunting scenes, the present painting shows a clear debt to Snyders. The eagle that perches triumphantly on its prey was clearly inspired by that in a painting by Snyders of the early 1620s, The Eagles and the Dead Wolf (Paris, Maison de la Chasse et de la Nature).5 Snyders’ eagle, in turn, was probably inspired by a famous antique marble, the Capitoline Eagle, which Rubens had also copied in a drawing of c. 1601 (formerly New York, Coll. Emile E. Wolf).6 The emblematic motif of an eagle attacking a heron in mid-air, in the background of the present painting, occurs in identical fashion in another etching from the set of Diversi uccelli, probably inspired by a lost composition by Snyders.7 Like Snyders’ work, Boel’s compositions tend to be quieter than those of Fyt. His handling of plumage and fur is generally tighter and less brushy than Fyt’s and often looks almost graphic compared to Fyt’s more painterly approach. Boel’s Diversi uccelli includes several scenes of violent confrontation involving birds of prey, falcons, eagles and hawks, a motif that also occurs in the work of Snyders. 8 Discussing Snyders’ The Eagles and the Dead Wolf, which depicts similar encounters between eagles, snakes and weasels, Robels observed that the scene calls to mind the proverb “as it is in the wild wood, where one eats or is eaten, so it is in this world”.9The eagle has numerous symbolic associations, most of them positive. It was the bird of apotheosis and resurrection, hence a symbol of Christ, a symbol of military power and “representative of majesty, victory, and courage”.10 On Roman coinage, the deified Emperor appeared above the eagle of Jupiter, and when an Emperor was cremated an eagle was released to transport his soul heavenwards. The eagle’s association with kingship rests in part on its traditional identification as the king of birds. It is not surprising, therefore, that the eagle appears in heraldry, including imperial arms. Beginning with Augustus, thus, Roman Emperors used the eagle to symbolize supreme power. The iconography of an eagle struggling with a serpent was studied at length by Wittkower, who traced the motif from its first appearance in ancient Mesopotamian art.11 Given its richly developed iconography, there can be little doubt that the confrontation of the eagle and the snake is allegorical, and that it conveys the idea of victory over evil, be it in the realm of the spiritual or the political. 12 Noting the eagle’s association with kingship, Koslow interpreted Snyders’ painting as, in part, a political allegory, alluding to Habsburg rule.13 CF 1 Oral communication dated 8 July 1988 in the NM curatorial files. And cf. Robels 1989. Granberg (1929–1931) was, however, the first scholar to make a tentative attribution to Boel in print (vol. III, p. 179 n. 3). 2 Oil on canvas, 148.0 x 240.0 cm, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. no. 224 (Cat. 1924), see photo on file at the RKD, The Hague. 3 See Bartsch, IV, p. 202; Hollstein, III, p. 57; repro. in The Illus. Bartsch, 4 Oil on canvas, 165 x 229.5 cm, sold, London, Sotheby’s, 19 April 1989, lot 147, see photo on file at the RKD, The Hague. 5 Oil on canvas, 164.0 x 238.0 cm, Paris, Maison de la Chasse et de la Nature, inv. no. 71-I-I; for which see Robels 1989, cat. no. 209, repr. 6 For Rubens’ drawing, see Jaffé 1977, p. 81L, fig. 267. 7 For the print, see Bartsch, IV, p. 201; Hollstein, III, p. 57; repro. The Illus. Bartsch, V, p. 191. Cf. a painting attributed to Boel depicting this motif in the Coll. of Count Philippe of Limburg Stirum, Ansegem (Belgium) in 1954, for which see the photo on file at the RKD, The Hague. For Snyders’ lost painting, see above under no. 188. 8 For the Diversi uccelli, see Bartsch, IV, pp. 201–203, repro. in The Illustrated Bartsch, V, 191, 192, 195. For Snyders, see Robels 1989, cat.nos. 208, 209, V46, V47. 9 See Hans Marcus, Niederländische Sprichwörter des 17. Jahrhunderts (Kat. XVII), Düsseldorf 1974/1975, no. 165; and Jacob Cats, Spiegel, in De Wercken van Jacob Cats, ed. J. van Vloten, Zwolle (repr., Groningen, n.d.), p. 186, both cited by Robels 1989, under cat. no. 209. 10 Rowland 1978, p. 165. 11 Wittkower 1977, pp. 16–44. According to Wittkower, the motif became current in Christian art in the 6th and 7th centuries, reaching its apogee in the 12th and 13th centuries. Exegetes, following the Pseudo-Ambrose’s interpretation of the struggle, explained it as a simile for Christ’s victory over Satan. This meaning was transferred to secular contexts when princes and other lay persons in the 16th and 17th centuries appropriated the motif. The image of an eagle triumphing over a serpent also acquired the significance of victory in general. Rulers in the 16th century issued medals with the motif to signify their political authority or to memorialize a military victory. 12 Cf. Ulisse Aldrovandi, Ornithologiae, Bologna 1599–1603, bk. I, II, pp. 17–234, for the eagle and other raptors, and bk. I, pp. 44–46, for the eagle’s antipathy to serpents [draco]. 13 See Koslow 1995, pp. 313–315. [End]
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