Stag Hunt
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 199 x 339 cm h x w x d: Ram 235 x 372 x 15 cm
Inventory numberNM 639
AcqusitionTransferred 1866 from Kongl. Museum (Purchase 1845)
Other titlesTitle (sv): Hjortjakt Title (en): Stag Hunt Title (en): Fallow Deer Hunt
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 185: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of two strips of fine, densely woven, plain weave fabric, joined by a horizontal seam c. 56.0 cm from the bottom edge. The painting has been lined and mounted on a non-original strainer. The original tacking edges have been removed on all sides. Cusping is visible along the right edge only. Paint is applied thickly in opaque layers, especially in the sky, over a brown imprimatura that extends to the edges of the support. The thick preparatory layers completely obscure the canvas texture. The deer and the hunting dogs, except for the white dog at the lower right, were executed with vigorous brushwork and pastose paint over a cool grey underpaint used as a middle tone. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1926, 1960 and 2010. Provenance: Possibly Nicolas Sohier, “Het Huis met de Hoofden”, Keizersgracht 123, Amsterdam, until 1634; possibly Louis De Geer I, Amsterdam, until 1652; Laurens De Geer, Amsterdam; Gerard De Geer, Amsterdam; Louis De Geer III, Amsterdam; Maria Christina De Geer and Margareta Elisabeth Trigland, Amsterdam; Louis De Geer IV, Amsterdam; Jean Jacques De Geer, Finspång, Sweden. Fredrik Schlegel, Stockholm, before 1823. Purchased in 1845; KM 1861/1867, no. 1030 (as Frans Snyders). Exhibited: Stockholm 1977–1978, no. 103; Stockholm 2010, no. 91. Bibliography: Cat. Finspong, Stockholm 1809, no. 6 (as Frans Snyders); NM Cat. 1867, p. 46 (as Frans Snyders); NM Cat. 1871, p. 45 (as probably by Paul de Vos); Sander IV, pp. 153–154 (as probably by Paul de Vos); NM Cat. 1883, p. 68 (as Paul de Vos); Göthe 1887, p. 288 (as Paul de Vos); Göthe 1893, p. 347; Granberg 1911–1913, III, p. 8, no. 22 (as Paul de Vos); Oldenbourg 1918, p. 191; Granberg 1929–1931, III, pp. 72, 152; Manneback, 1940, p. 558; NM Cat. 1958, p. 219 (as Paul de Vos); Balis 1986, p. 217 n. 10; Robels 1989, pp. 97, 335–336 no. 237a (as Paul de Vos in Snyders’ workshop); Kruyfhooft and Buys 1977, p. 36. Thirteen hunting dogs chase two fallow deer, an older and a younger buck. The hunt extends frieze-like from right to left across the foreground of a wooded landscape. As the young buck flees in profile towards the left with several dogs in hot pursuit, the older buck is being brought down by a frenzied pack of dogs attacking their prey from all sides. One dog lies wounded, pinned to the ground beneath the kneeling buck’s powerful antlers and muscular bent left foreleg. Two dogs sink their teeth into their prey, others press forward on the right, scrambling out of a ditch and over a fallen tree-trunk. In the leafy background landscape are the scattered figures of a hunting party in the distance. The present picture is a smaller-sized close variant version of the signed Fallow Deer Hunt by Frans Snyders in Brussels (Musées royaux des Beaux- Arts), a splendid example of the artist’s larger hunting scenes with a frieze format, dated by Robels to the late 1620s.1 The hilly wooded landscape of the present picture differs from the spacious, open landscape of the Brussels painting; the fleeing young buck has been brought closer to the fallen buck in a tighter, more compact arrangement, whereby the interlocking bodies of the animals now occupy most of the space and are situated closer to the picture plane; the dog biting into the flank of the kneeling buck has been left out of the design; the dog chasing the young buck on the right has been moved to the far side of the hunted animal, a pose derived from an engraving by Stradanus,2 also found in a related composition of a Deer Hunt in St. Petersburg (The Hermitage)3; and the grouping of dogs in the right foreground has been changed. The motif of the young buck fleeing from a pack of hunting dogs was frequently used by Snyders and his circle, for example, in the St. Petersburg painting, probably executed in the 1620s, with the assistance of his younger brother-in-law, Paul de Vos, and another painting of the same subject in Milan (Pinacoteca di Brera).4 Like the Brussels Fallow Deer Hunt on which it is based, this painting reveals the influence of Rubens. Although compositions and individual motifs of Sny- ders’ hunting scenes – including many of the groupings and attitudes of the dogs – may often be traced to Rubens, Snyders’ primacy for the development of hunting imagery in 17th-century Flemish painting remained largely unquestioned until Balis published his seminal study of Rubens’ hunting scenes in 1986.5 Around 1628, Rubens probably engaged Snyders to paint the animals in two hunting pictures (now lost), The Calydonian Boar Hunt and Diana and Nymphs Hunting Deer, the first instance of a collaborative effort in this area.6 Rubens painted oil sketches of the entire compositions, including the animals. While The Calydonian Boar Hunt did not directly influence Snyders,7 the Diana Hunting was crucial for his Brussels hunting picture. In the Diana Hunting Rubens introduced the pathetic motif of the male deer sacrificing itself to enable its mate to escape: a stag is struck down by a spear and set upon by savage hounds – a motif traceable to a woodcut by 16th-century Swiss printmaker Jost Amman8 – while the doe flees for her life. Snyders used the frequently imitated combination of the stricken animal and its fleeing, defenceless mate for his Brussels painting. Like Rubens, he chose an elongated oblong canvas for his deer hunting scene, a format particularly well-suited to the theme of the chase. Balis stressed Snyders’ dependence on Rubens, but also pointed out that Snyders was not simply a copyist but an original artist, as borne out by the Brussels deer hunting picture. The attitude of the buck sinking to its knees was almost literally borrowed from Rubens, as was the hound biting its ear, but Snyders made some changes to the buck. Its hindquarters are now silhouetted against the sky, and the distinctive dark brown band of a fallow deer traces the backbone, giving the body anatomical definition, a concern for anatomy also apparent in the pronounced musculature of its left foreleg and shoulder. In Rubens’ mythological hunting scene, the escaping animal is a doe, whereas Snyders shows a young buck running off. While Rubens’ hunting scenes always include both hunting party and prey, Snyders’ hunts almost exclusively feature animals engaged in mortal combat, their physiognomies represented at emotional highpoints, when raging passions distort features. While he did not invent the theme of battling beasts, one of the most ancient known, Snyders adapted it to the larger canvas, a format anticipated by sixteenth-century animal tapestries, and gave it a new dramatic intensity and clarity by showing the moment when the pack corners the quarry. This painting entered the collection as an autograph work by Snyders, but was early on reattributed to his younger brother-in-law, Paul de Vos (NM Cat. 1871). There remains, however, some uncertainty in distinguishing between the two artists, who worked closely together. As few paintings by Snyders are signed and none dated, attributions are rarely certain and a chronology difficult to establish. His tendency to repeat motifs over a period of many years, and the fact that he frequently had copies and variants made after his direction adds further uncertainty.9 Forgotten for centuries, Snyders’ younger brother-in-law was the subject of reevaluation by Manneback10 and, later, by Robels (1989),11 both of whom attributed the painting to De Vos. Robels regarded the painting as possibly the work of the young artist in Snyders’ workshop, but we still know too little of De Vos’ early style to really affirm or deny his share in Snyders’ Hunts. Distinguishing between the two artists, Balis (1986) emphasized Snyders’ deeper understanding of animal anatomy and, especially in his early works, his aim to achieve the greatest possible differentiation in the rendering of animal pelts.12 With De Vos, on the other hand, the anatomy of his animals often looks improbable, the brushwork is more emphatic, and a decorative tendency is evident in his preference for triangular compositions as well as in the treatment of the hounds, which are usually elongated, with spotted or mottled coats, for example, in his signed picture of a Stag Attacked by a Pack of Hounds in Brussels (Musées royaux des Beaux- Arts). The Brussels and Stockholm Fallow Deer Hunts, on the other hand, share the same overall conception of animal forms: the tense muscles, supple joints, sharply drawn profiles and firm outlines of the animals all point to Snyders rather than De Vos. Throughout both works the animals display the robust musculature, anatomical precision and vigorous modelling of Snyders’ hunting pictures, which are more dramatic and realistic than decorative. In many instances, however, Snyders seems to have shared his work with a number of assistants: the present picture, thus, seems to show Snyders’ hand in the deer and the fallen hound beneath the kneeling stag, De Vos’ in some of the grouping of dogs on the right, including the shaggy, mottle-coated hound pursuing the fleeing quarry, and an unidentified artist’s for the remaining animals. The landscape is similar to those of Jan Wildens, a frequent collaborator of both artists, in which we recognize the very detailed treatment of plants, bushes and trees in the fore- ground, as well as the distant atmospheric vistas and airy handling of foliage. CF 1 Oil on canvas, 220 x 420 cm, signed “F. Snijders Fecit”, Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. 3229; see Robels 1989, cat. no. 237, illus. Koslow dates the Brussels painting later, c. 1630–1640; see Koslow 1995, p. 236, fig. 312. Buschmann, in the Biographie nationale de Belgique, 1921–1924, vol. 23, col. 74, attributed the painting to Paul de Vos. The Brussels painting was copied in gallery pictures by Janssens (Montargis, Musée Girodet) and Frans Francken (Upparc Coll.) 2 Johannes Stradanus, The Fight between the Mailed Hunter and the Bear, engraving, from the Venationes, no. 26 (Antwerp 1578). The head and upper body of this dog occurs, together with other sketches of animals, a young boar, a bear, and dogs, some copied after prints by Stradanus, in a sheet of Animal Studies by Snyders (pen and brown ink, brown wash, 250 x 380 mm, London, BM, 1946-7-187-190, Fenwick Coll.); see Robels 1989, cat. no. AZ63 (rejected), and Koslow 1995, pp. 248–249, fig. 336. 3 Oil on canvas, 196 x 336, St.Petersburg, The Hermitage, inv. no. 1331; see Robels 1989, cat. no. 238, illus. 4 Oil on canvas, 198 x 295 cm, Milan, Pinacoteca di Brera, inv. no. 682; see ibid, cat. no. 239, illus. 5 Balis 1986, pp. 79–81. 6 The two paintings were presented to Philip IV when Rubens visited Spain in 1628. They were later lost in the fire that destroyed much of the Alcázar in 1734. For Rubens’ oil sketches in a Swiss private collection; see Balis 1986, cat.nos. 12a, 13a, figs. 82, 87. Rubens’ final involvement with the subject of the hunt was in 1639, when Philip IV commissioned eight hunting scenes for the summer apartments in the Alcázar. The contract specified that Rubens was to collaborate with Snyders, which indicates Snyders’ acknowledged preeminence in this area; see ibid, cat.nos. 20–27, figs. 105, 110, 112, 118–119, 122–126, 131–133. 7 The motif of the hound climbing over a felled tree-trunk on the right, which later became popular with some of Snyders’ circle, such as David de Coninck, is derived from Rubens’ Calydonian Boar Hunt of c. 1618/1619 in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. 523) or its studio replicas; for which see Balis 1986, cat. no. 10, fig. 69. And cf. Rubens’ Boar Hunt in Marseille, Musée des Beaux-Arts, one of a set of four hunting scenes painted between 1616 and 1618 for Maximilian I, duke of Bavaria, and the Landscape with a Boar Hunt in Dresden, Gemäldegalerie, painted before 1620; see ibid, cat. no. 4, and figs. 26, 40. 8 Jost Amman, Stag Hunt, woodcut, from Neuw Jagd und Weydwerck, 1582, see The Illustrated Bartsch, 20 (Part II). German Masters of the Sixteenth Century. Jost Amman: Woodcuts cont., ed. J. S. Peters (New York 1985), cited by Koslow 1995, p. 236. 9 Documents often distinguish between Snyders’ originals and copies after his works, but it is difficult to apply the distinction to surviving pieces: Matthijs Musson, an Antwerp art dealer, thus ordered three copies after Snyders; the inventory of the artist’s estate identifies seven originals and seven copies; Herman de Neyt owned a Wolf Hunt “by Snyder” and a Deer Hunt “after Snyders”; and Jeremias Wildens had a copy of a Boar Hunt. For a posthumous inventory of Snyders’ pictures, see Denucé 1949, pp. 188–190; for Musson’s copies, p. 130; for pictures owned by De Neyt and Wildens, see Denucé 1932, pp. 86, 163, all cited by Koslow 1995, p. 344 n. 20. 10 Manneback advocated Paul de Vos’ priority in animal painting, arguing that Snyders, being essentially a still life painter, was not capable of representing physical action and emotion very well. Although there is no doubt that De Vos excelled as a painter of animals in action, it would be wrong to downgrade Snyders’ work in this respect. See Manneback in Thieme- Becker 1940, and Manneback 1949. 11 The oeuvre of De Vos was treated critically for the first time in Robels’ monograph on Snyders; see Robels 1989, pp. 96–99, 474–485, for the hunting scenes by Paul de Vos. 12 Balis 1986, p. 86.[End]
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
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