Melchior d' Hondecoeter
Birds and Fowl
1658-1668
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Melchior d' Hondecoeter
Birds and Fowl
1658-1668
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, 33 3/4 x 30 in. (85.7 x 76.2 cm.)
Credit Line
Women's Committee Auction Fund from Bequest of Laura Carmine, Bequest of Saidie A. May, Bequest of Florence Reese Winslow, Gift of The Hendler Foundation, Inc., and Gift of Alvin S. Novack
Object Number
1962.37
Although other animals appear occasionally in d’Hondecoeter’s compositions, he focused mainly on representations of various birds generally shown in intimate settings with landscape views in the distance. Typically, they appear close up in the center of the canvas, occasionally in combat, at rest, or startled by a predator. In this work, a rooster, watching over a hen and her brood of chickens turns in
alarm at the arrival of a duck that has just landed behind him.
D'Hondecoeter was of Flemish origin and spent most of his life in Amsterdam, where he gained prominence for his avian themes. His work continued to be admired into the nineteenth century and he was referred to as the “Raphael of bird painters.”
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, January 4, 1963; F. Kleinberger and Company, New York, NY by purchase, May 16, 1962; Sotheby’s & Co., London, May 16, 1962, lot 16; Count Edward Raczynski (1891–1993), London, England.
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Kearney, Joy. “Birds of a Feather: De Hondecoeter and the Birth of a New Genre.” The Low Countries: Arts and Society in Flanders and the Netherlands 16 (2008), pp. 116-126.
Kearney, Joy. “Melchior de Hondecoeter in the service of William III: royal taste and patronage in the Dutch Golden Age.” In Collecting and the Princely Apartment, edited by Susan Bracken et al, pp. 41-57. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Kearney, Joy. Melchior de Hondecoeter, schilder van buitenplaatsen, te gast op Sypesteyn. Loosdrecht: Sypesteyn Kasteel-Museum, 2012.
Kearney, Joy. “Ornithology and Collecting in the Dutch Golden Age: Captured Specimens and The Collecting of Exotica.” In Collecting Nature, edited by Andrea Gáldy et al, pp. 57-73. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
Kearney, Joy. “Melchior de Hondecoeter in the service of William III: royal taste and patronage in the Dutch Golden Age.” In Collecting and the Princely Apartment, edited by Susan Bracken et al, pp. 41-57. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011.
Kearney, Joy. Melchior de Hondecoeter, schilder van buitenplaatsen, te gast op Sypesteyn. Loosdrecht: Sypesteyn Kasteel-Museum, 2012.
Kearney, Joy. “Ornithology and Collecting in the Dutch Golden Age: Captured Specimens and The Collecting of Exotica.” In Collecting Nature, edited by Andrea Gáldy et al, pp. 57-73. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014.
Inscribed: Face: LRQ, "M D Hondekoeter"