A hare, pigeons and other game with a cat

Jan Fyt was one of the most successful artists working in Antwerp, where he executed over 287 still lifes, a large number of which are hunting trophies like the present picture. Fyt completed his initial training as an animal and still life painter under Frans Snyders, for whom he continued to work as an independent master after joining Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke in 1630. He subsequently travelled to France and Italy, painting in Rome with the Schildersbent, who nicknamed him 'Goudvink' (Dutch for 'goldfinch'). By 1650 Fyt was again in Antwerp, where he joined the Guild of Romanists (an exclusive society of men who had visited Rome) and became its dean in 1652. Among his pupils were Pieter Boel and Jacob van de Kerckhoven, and the influence of his tonal palette and free brushwork was felt throughout the Northern and Southern Netherlands as well as in Italy.

According to his contemporaries, Fyt was a popular painter with Europe's princes and counts, his paintings appearing in the collections of the governors of the Spanish Netherlands, the Marqués de Solerio, the Marqués del Carpio and Prince Clemens Augustus of Cologne. Of particular interest to his fellow artists were Fyt's oil sketches, which were collected in Antwerp by, among others, Erasmus Quellinus and Johannes Philips Happart.