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Lot Essay
This is a version of the painting, painted with studio assistance, in the Palacio de Riofrio, Segovia. The stag also recurs in two fully autograph works by Snyders: that in The Hermitage, Leningrad (inv. no. 1331; pace Hella Robels who suggested the possible collaboration of Paul de Vos [Frans Snyders, Munich, 1989, p. 337, no. 238) and that in the Brera, Milan (inv. no. 682), as well as in several other studio works, including that in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. no. NM639), itself in turn an adaptation of the autograph Stag Hunt in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 3229). In the latter work, the pose of the stag is the same as here, but its mouth is open. All three autograph works are datable to the 1620s. The Riofrio painting appears to be the first of Snyders' work to introduce the motif of the hind, turning its head back towards the stag.
The hound in the left foreground recurs in the lost Hunt of Diana, formerly in the Alcázar, Madrid (possibly burnt in 1734), of which a copy by Mazo is in the collection of the Prado, Madrid (inv. no. 346-P; since 1881 on loan to Barcelona University); a preparatory drawing is in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 00.9.38). Another drawing, for the head of the fallen hound, is in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (inv. no. 53). The head of the black and white hound beneath the stag, which otherwise appears only in the Riofrio picture, would appear to be taken from that in a sheet of animal studies in the British Museum, London, dated to circa 1630-40, suggesting a similar date for the present composition. That study is in turn adapted from an engraving of The wild steer hunt by Johannes Stradanus (Venationes, Antwerp, 1578): such borrowing from older sources was a technique that Snyders is known to have used elsewhere for the animals in his paintings.
The hound in the left foreground recurs in the lost Hunt of Diana, formerly in the Alcázar, Madrid (possibly burnt in 1734), of which a copy by Mazo is in the collection of the Prado, Madrid (inv. no. 346-P; since 1881 on loan to Barcelona University); a preparatory drawing is in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 00.9.38). Another drawing, for the head of the fallen hound, is in the Courtauld Institute Galleries, London (inv. no. 53). The head of the black and white hound beneath the stag, which otherwise appears only in the Riofrio picture, would appear to be taken from that in a sheet of animal studies in the British Museum, London, dated to circa 1630-40, suggesting a similar date for the present composition. That study is in turn adapted from an engraving of The wild steer hunt by Johannes Stradanus (Venationes, Antwerp, 1578): such borrowing from older sources was a technique that Snyders is known to have used elsewhere for the animals in his paintings.