Beskrivning: Se även beskrivning i den engelska versionen
 

Catalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 56: 
 
Technical notes: The painting’s original support
consists of a single piece of loosely woven, mediumweight,
plain-weave linen with a selvedge at the top edge,
later mounted on a pressed wood support. The original
tacking edges (ungrounded) are partially preserved on all
sides, and broad cusping is present on the left and right
sides, suggesting that the painting has retained its original
dimensions.

Paint is applied thickly in opaque layers over a light
brown ground layer, with rich impasto and vigorous
brushmarking in the lights, the rabbits’ fur, the sky and
clouds, the plant in the left foreground. The fur of the
brown rabbit, created by a mass of short staccato and zigzag
strokes of grey, brown, black, yellow ochre and white
going in different directions, is painted wet-into-wet,
over a dark brown underpaint. The coat of the white rabbit
is shaded with grey, brown, yellow ochre and reddish
orange. There are no pentimenti visible to the naked eye.
The painting is in very good condition, with few
retouches and hardly any abrasion. A heavily discoloured
layer of old varnish is present. The weave structure of
the original canvas support has become more apparent as
a result of the lining. Retouching covers losses of paint
and ground layers along the edges, especially the left and
bottom edges. There are scattered retouches in the sky
and foreground; one small retouch above the eye of the
white rabbit. The painting underwent conservation treatment
in 1845 and 1935.

Provenance: Possibly purchased 1652 in The Netherlands
by J. C. Danneux for Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie
(inv. 1652/1653, “1 Litet st. med 2 små haareungar”).1
Gustav III 1792, no. 249; KM 1816, no. 555.

Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 65 (as anonymous
French master); Sander II, p. 125 no. 249; Göthe 1887,
p. 88 (as anonymous French master); Göthe 1893, p.
109; Göthe 1910, p. 123; NM Cat. 1958, p. 227 (as
anonymous French master); NM Cat. 1990, p. 138 (as
copy after Jan Fyt).

In the foreground of this picture, in front of a large
column base, a pair of rabbits are shown nibbling on
some leaves; in the far distance on the right, are some
low-lying mountains.

This small animal piece, previously regarded as a
copy after Jan Fyt, is here reattributed to David de
Coninck,2 an artist who specialized in paintings of live
animals as well as still lifes. In his works De Coninck
emulated the style of Jan Fyt even more than that of
his teacher, Pieter Boel, and because he did not sign
many of his works, several of them were later misattributed
to the better known Fyt. Scenes with prominent
rabbits, often in pairs, appear to have been a
favourite motif of De Coninck, as depicted in his
many poultry-yard and other outdoor scenes with live
animals. They can be found in a signed painting of c.
1660 in Rome (Galleria Nazionale),3 as well as in a
great number of unsigned but highly characteristic
paintings by the artist. Compare, especially, the almost
identical pair in a larger picture of A Cock, a Hen, Rabbits,
and Doves in a Landscape, with a Cat, formerly in
the Collection Balzer & Co, Schlosspark Hohen-
buchau, Schlangenbad-Georgenborn.4 There is no
indication that the present painting is a fragment of a
larger composition such as this (see Technical Notes).
Rather, it seems to be a complete work in its own
right. One may compare another rather simple, only
slightly larger, composition by the artist, showing A
Marmot, Cocks, and Rabbits with a Straw Hat in a Landscape
(priv. coll.), which bears the same relationship to
a larger painting by the same hand that was on the
French art market in 1968.5
CF

1 Possibly identical with the painting in the possession of Magnus Gabriel
De la Gardie, described by Granberg 1930, pp. 63, 207.
2 According to a letter by Fred G. Meijer of the RKD dated 19 October
1990 in the NM curatorial files – as well as by oral communication in the
spring of 2005 – this small painting is an autograph work by David de
Coninck.
3 Oil on canvas, 97.5 x 132.5, Rome, Galleria Nazionale, inv. no. 903; see
the photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague.
4 Oil on canvas, 80 x 104 cm; see the photograph on file at the RKD, The
Hague. A copy of this painting, previously owned by Mr. Bengt Boye,
Stockholm, was sold at Sotheby’s, London, 11 December 1991, lot 145.
5 Oil on canvas, 50 x 69 cm; see the photograph on file at the RKD, The
Hague. The larger composition from which this motif appears to be
extracted was sold at Rameau, Blache, Versailles, 10 March 1968, lot 28,
with an incorrect attribution to the workshop of Francois Desportes. A
series of De Coninck’s works at Burghley House near Stamford also
includes two similar simple compositions of the same size as NM 903.[End]

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