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拍品專文
Born in Utrecht, and trained under his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix, Hondecoetor was admitted into the Hague Painter's confraternity, Picturem, in 1659, only a year after painting his earliest recorded work (Dog Defending Dead Game Against a Bird of Prey, Muse de Beaux-Arts, Le Havre). By 1663 Hondecoeter was established in Amsterdam, where he achieved considerable success as a specialist painter of farmyard and allegorical scenes in which birds were the main protagonists. Few of his documented commissions are known today, but among those are paintings commissioned for the Stadholder William III for his pleasure palaces at Soetdijk and Het Loo.
Although some of his works are dated, Hondecoeter established his style early and adhered to it throughout his long career, making it difficult to propose a precise chronology for undated paintings. The present work has many of the compositional devices favored by Hondecoeter from the late 1660s, which he in turn absorbed from the classic Flemish still lifes of the Antwerp artist, Frans Snyders (see, for instance, Three Monkeys Stealing Fruit, Muse du Louvre, Paris, Inv, no, M.I. 981; and The Vegetable Market, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Inv. no. 1313). The ducks are seen close up in the center of the canvas, with others entering from, in this case, the right; their bodies cropped by the frame add an immediacy to the scene, in which a partially blocked Italianate vista can be seen through the ruins of a wall. He adds histrionics to this potentially mundane formula by imbuing his birds with characteristics and postures typical of each species, which could be easily translated into understandable human attitudes and emotions. The angry Egyptian Goose remonstrating with an entering stranger, the Muscovy Duck shielding her chicks from an intruding goose swimming alarmingly near her, and the Tufted Duck standing irritably on the bank, are all watched by the inquiring gaze of a perching Hoopoe.
Although Melchior d'Hondecoeter does not appear to have made preparatory drawings for his compositions, his practice of sketching birds in oil (first known to us through the inventory of his studio at the time of his death where fourteen such modelli are listed), today is known only from a canvas covered with detailed studies of seventeen birds and a squirrel, sketched on a neutral ground (Muse de Beaux-Arts, Lille). Many of the models on this one canvas appear exactly as sketched in his paintings from 1668 onwards. The present work is no exception in displaying Hondecoeter's propencity to re-use successful prototypes. The Tufted Duck, for instance, is used in the signed and dated painting of 1681, sold, Christie's, London, July 10, 1987, lot 15 (160,000=$257,600), as is the resting duck near the water on the far bank. A near identical Muscovy Hen and her squawking chick behind, together with the perched Hoopoe, appear in a Parkland landscape with Waterfowl and a Pelican in a private collection, Scotland; and the Hoopoe appears on a wall in a similar landscape with a Turkey and a Pelican, signed and dated 1675, offered at Christie's, London, Nov. 30, 1973, lot 4.
A close variant of the present work was sold at Christie's, London, July 11, 1980, lot 55. The park-like setting also recurs with variations; compare, for example, the painting in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Inv. no. 509. A version of the present lot by Robert Griffier, based on the central section of the present painting was previously with Leger Galleries, London (see C.E. Jackson, Bird Painting, the Eighteenth Century, 1994, p. 73, illustrated).
Although some of his works are dated, Hondecoeter established his style early and adhered to it throughout his long career, making it difficult to propose a precise chronology for undated paintings. The present work has many of the compositional devices favored by Hondecoeter from the late 1660s, which he in turn absorbed from the classic Flemish still lifes of the Antwerp artist, Frans Snyders (see, for instance, Three Monkeys Stealing Fruit, Muse du Louvre, Paris, Inv, no, M.I. 981; and The Vegetable Market, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Inv. no. 1313). The ducks are seen close up in the center of the canvas, with others entering from, in this case, the right; their bodies cropped by the frame add an immediacy to the scene, in which a partially blocked Italianate vista can be seen through the ruins of a wall. He adds histrionics to this potentially mundane formula by imbuing his birds with characteristics and postures typical of each species, which could be easily translated into understandable human attitudes and emotions. The angry Egyptian Goose remonstrating with an entering stranger, the Muscovy Duck shielding her chicks from an intruding goose swimming alarmingly near her, and the Tufted Duck standing irritably on the bank, are all watched by the inquiring gaze of a perching Hoopoe.
Although Melchior d'Hondecoeter does not appear to have made preparatory drawings for his compositions, his practice of sketching birds in oil (first known to us through the inventory of his studio at the time of his death where fourteen such modelli are listed), today is known only from a canvas covered with detailed studies of seventeen birds and a squirrel, sketched on a neutral ground (Muse de Beaux-Arts, Lille). Many of the models on this one canvas appear exactly as sketched in his paintings from 1668 onwards. The present work is no exception in displaying Hondecoeter's propencity to re-use successful prototypes. The Tufted Duck, for instance, is used in the signed and dated painting of 1681, sold, Christie's, London, July 10, 1987, lot 15 (160,000=$257,600), as is the resting duck near the water on the far bank. A near identical Muscovy Hen and her squawking chick behind, together with the perched Hoopoe, appear in a Parkland landscape with Waterfowl and a Pelican in a private collection, Scotland; and the Hoopoe appears on a wall in a similar landscape with a Turkey and a Pelican, signed and dated 1675, offered at Christie's, London, Nov. 30, 1973, lot 4.
A close variant of the present work was sold at Christie's, London, July 11, 1980, lot 55. The park-like setting also recurs with variations; compare, for example, the painting in the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Inv. no. 509. A version of the present lot by Robert Griffier, based on the central section of the present painting was previously with Leger Galleries, London (see C.E. Jackson, Bird Painting, the Eighteenth Century, 1994, p. 73, illustrated).