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Lot Essay
Melchior d’Hondecoeter was the leading bird painter in the Dutch seventeenth century, a fact which earned him the moniker ‘the Raphael of bird painters’ among critics two centuries later. Hondecoeter developed his visual vocabulary in the studios of his father, Gijsbert Gillisz. de Hondecoeter, and uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix, though his works are equally informed by the Antwerp artist Frans Snyders, especially evident in the freedom with which he handled the brush.
The elongated format of this large-scale painting, unusual in Hondecoeter’s oeuvre, suggests it once formed part of a larger decorative scheme. Two further canvases of similar width, depicting game atop a comparable white marble ledge before curtains, probably belong to the same ensemble (sold Sotheby’s, Paris, 15 June 2021, lot 32). The artist’s precise, shimmering rendering of the birds’ plumage and monkeys’ hair is comparable to the other pair and suggests a relatively late date in the artist’s career. Indeed, the present painting formerly bore a signature and date of 1685, the inscription probably having been transcribed from another canvas when the group was separated.
Though they seldom survive today, Hondecoeter’s animals must derive in large part from studio drawings and oil sketches. The peacock seen here appears in at least three drawings by the artist, including examples in the British Museum (inv. no. 1861,0810.23) and the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, Weimar (inv. no. 5104), and, for example, as an albino example in a painting in the National Museum, Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.2380 MNW). Similarly, the monkey viewed frontally at lower right features in a painting dated 1683 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 27.250.1), as well as in the example sold, Christie’s, New York, 26 January 2011, lot 25, which remains the world auction record for the artist ($1,650,500).
Perhaps more intriguingly, this painting also serves as testament to the sharing of motifs between Hondecoeter and his cousin, Jan Weenix, long after they left the studio of Jan Baptist Weenix. The monkey at extreme lower right, for example, can likewise be found in one of six large decorative canvas from the so-called ‘Baring Series’ on account of their having decorated the house built for the Baring family in Northaw, Hertfordshire, since the eighteenth century (see A. A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, Jan Weenix: The Paintings: Master of the Dutch Hunting Still Life, Zwolle, 2018, no. 249). The canvases are typically thought to be among Weenix’s first attempts at illusionary wall decorations on a large scale, datable to a period before the so-called ‘Granada Series’, one panel of which is dated 1697. Similarly, an identical parrot seen from behind appears in Weenix’s Portrait of three children in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (fig. 1), a work securely datable to 1685. With the now-erased signature and date on Hondecoeter’s painting, Weenix’s portrait provides compelling evidence that this example also dates from that year.
The elongated format of this large-scale painting, unusual in Hondecoeter’s oeuvre, suggests it once formed part of a larger decorative scheme. Two further canvases of similar width, depicting game atop a comparable white marble ledge before curtains, probably belong to the same ensemble (sold Sotheby’s, Paris, 15 June 2021, lot 32). The artist’s precise, shimmering rendering of the birds’ plumage and monkeys’ hair is comparable to the other pair and suggests a relatively late date in the artist’s career. Indeed, the present painting formerly bore a signature and date of 1685, the inscription probably having been transcribed from another canvas when the group was separated.
Though they seldom survive today, Hondecoeter’s animals must derive in large part from studio drawings and oil sketches. The peacock seen here appears in at least three drawings by the artist, including examples in the British Museum (inv. no. 1861,0810.23) and the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen, Weimar (inv. no. 5104), and, for example, as an albino example in a painting in the National Museum, Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.2380 MNW). Similarly, the monkey viewed frontally at lower right features in a painting dated 1683 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 27.250.1), as well as in the example sold, Christie’s, New York, 26 January 2011, lot 25, which remains the world auction record for the artist ($1,650,500).
Perhaps more intriguingly, this painting also serves as testament to the sharing of motifs between Hondecoeter and his cousin, Jan Weenix, long after they left the studio of Jan Baptist Weenix. The monkey at extreme lower right, for example, can likewise be found in one of six large decorative canvas from the so-called ‘Baring Series’ on account of their having decorated the house built for the Baring family in Northaw, Hertfordshire, since the eighteenth century (see A. A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, Jan Weenix: The Paintings: Master of the Dutch Hunting Still Life, Zwolle, 2018, no. 249). The canvases are typically thought to be among Weenix’s first attempts at illusionary wall decorations on a large scale, datable to a period before the so-called ‘Granada Series’, one panel of which is dated 1697. Similarly, an identical parrot seen from behind appears in Weenix’s Portrait of three children in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest (fig. 1), a work securely datable to 1685. With the now-erased signature and date on Hondecoeter’s painting, Weenix’s portrait provides compelling evidence that this example also dates from that year.