Bear Hunt
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 167 x 251 cm
Inventory numberNMDrh 334
Other titlesTitle (sv): Hundar anfalla en björn Title (en): Bear Hunt
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 24: Technical notes: The support consists of two pieces of densely and evenly woven plain weave fabric joined vertically in the centre of the painting. The canvases probably come from the same bolt. There are tacking edges on the left where the motif has been folded over the edge by about 9 cm. On the top, right and bottom the motif has been folded over the edge by about 2 cm. on each side. The top, right and bottom edges of the painting have probably been trimmed. Broad cusping can be seen on the left and right edge. The painting has been lined and mounted on a non-original stretcher. The painting no longer retains its original format. The preparation consists of a thin and evenly applied light ground. A thin, dark, cool, greyish-blue imprimatura has been applied evenly and opaquely over the light ground. Both pieces of the canvas have probably been prepared in the same way. The ground covers the texture of the fabric completely. The paint layer has been applied thinly and opaquely. In areas broad pastose brushstrokes are used to render the coats of the animals, mainly the dog in the foreground. A reserve has been left for the bear against the sky. The paint layers cover the underlying preparatory layers completely. There is some overlap between the elements in the painting. Distinctive long brushstrokes with dry paint on the brush. In places the pigment is laid on densely with distinct brushstrokes and using very little medium to render the coats of the animals in a ‘scumbling’ technique. Minor adjustments of outlines. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1926. A bear standing upright on its hind legs is encircled by five snarling hunting hounds. Three dogs have cornered the large beast, while two lie wounded on the ground, writhing in pain and agony. The scene takes place before a wooded landscape setting with, on the right, the familiar gnarled oak trees and, on the left, a view into a distant valley below. This bear hunting scene is identical, except for minor details of the landscape, to a large Bear Hunt, attributed to an unidentified follower of Frans Snyders and Paul de Vos, which was on the Dutch art market in 1974,1 and was probably executed by the same hand. The grouping and attitudes of the animals – the stance of the bear with its massive head and powerful paws, the poses and intense expressions of the dogs – were taken over from this design, including the characteristic wide-eyed, open stare of the animals. The same design was repeated in two more paintings of similar dimensions, one at Dyrham (Gloucestershire, Dyrham Park),2 and the other on the Paris art market in 1989,3 identical except for the landscape setting. Although the treatment of the animals and landscape varies somewhat between these pictures, all must have been produced by the same Antwerp workshop. While there is no extant prototype for this bear hunting scene in the known oeuvre of Snyders or De Vos, a drawing by Snyders in London (British Museum), depicts a bear in a smiliar upright stance, copied after a print by Stradanus (Venationes, no. 26).4 CF 1 Oil on canvas, 167 x 239 cm, Leeuwarden, Kunsthandlung A. C. Beeling, 1974, there attributed to a follower of Frans Snyders and Paul de Vos; see a photo on file at the RKD, The Hague. 2 Oil on canvas, 190.5 x 241.5 cm (h. 165 cm without the addition), Dyrham, Gloucestershire, Dyrham Park, National Trust House, there attributed to Frans Snyders. See Gore 1969, p. 244, and Robels 1989, cat. no. A 244 (after Jan Fyt?). A small-scale copy in oil on wood panel (25 x 38 cm) occurred in a sale at Neumeister, 24 March 1999, lot 404, as a pendant to a Boar Hunt which seems to copy the same composition as our no. 23. A Lion Hunt at Dyrham Park, copied after a picture formerly at Potsdam-Sanssouci, is said to be a pendant to the Bear Hunt, see ibid and Robels 1989, cat. nos. 245 (as Jan Fyt?) and 245a. 3 Oil on canvas, 186 x 230 cm, sale, Paris, Druot Arcole, 27 June 1989, lot 25, as Paul de Vos, said to have come from the collection of Everhard Jabach. 4 Frans Snyders, Animal Studies, c. 1630–1640, pen and ink, brown wash, 250 x 380 mm, London, B.M., inv. no. 1946-7-13-175, Fenwick coll.; for which see Koslow 1995, p. 248, figs. 336, 337. Robels 1989, p. 505 no. AZ 63, rejects the attribution of this drawing to Snyders.
Collection
Object category