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Lot Essay
Melchior d’Hondecoeter was the preeminent bird painter of the Dutch Golden Age. He is best known for his depictions of waterfowl and domestic birds set in courtyards or Italianate landscapes, so this striking depiction of a menacing eagle trailing closely behind its prey is a rare and unusually dramatic example of the artist’s talents. With its wings spread wide and beak expectantly agape, the great bird’s plumage – rendered with painstaking detail – is on full display as it prepares to snatch the swallow above. The two birds below scatter into the cloudy sky in separate directions, having just escaped a similar fate.
Hondecoeter’s paintings were immensely popular among the wealthy Amsterdam elite of his day and remained among the most desirable decorative paintings of the 19th century, when the artist was famously given the moniker ‘Raphael of bird painters’. Although he received his training under his father, Gisjbert Gillisz. De Hondecoeter and his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix, Hondecoeter also absorbed the influence of Frans Snyder’s lush still-life and game pictures.
When the present work appeared at auction in 1988, the two birds flying below the eagle had been painted over. After the sale, the canvas was cleaned to reveal the hidden snipe and finch as well as Hondecoeter’s unmistakable signature. The picture then entered the personal collection of Robert Noortman, among the most important dealers of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the late 20th century, and hung in his residence known as ‘De Groote Mot’ – a late Renaissance castle in the village of Borgloon, Belgium (fig. 1) – until his death in 2007.
Hondecoeter’s paintings were immensely popular among the wealthy Amsterdam elite of his day and remained among the most desirable decorative paintings of the 19th century, when the artist was famously given the moniker ‘Raphael of bird painters’. Although he received his training under his father, Gisjbert Gillisz. De Hondecoeter and his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix, Hondecoeter also absorbed the influence of Frans Snyder’s lush still-life and game pictures.
When the present work appeared at auction in 1988, the two birds flying below the eagle had been painted over. After the sale, the canvas was cleaned to reveal the hidden snipe and finch as well as Hondecoeter’s unmistakable signature. The picture then entered the personal collection of Robert Noortman, among the most important dealers of Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the late 20th century, and hung in his residence known as ‘De Groote Mot’ – a late Renaissance castle in the village of Borgloon, Belgium (fig. 1) – until his death in 2007.