Lot Essay
The composition relates to a prototype by Claude-François Desportes (Paris, Musée de la chasse et de la nature), of slightly wider format (80 x 108 cm.) and differences in the landscape background, the plant in the foreground and the tree at right (of which more is shown in the present work). The son of Alexandre-François Desportes, Claude-François studied with his father and was received into the Académie royale on 25 September 1723; his morceau de réception, Still-life of game, fruits, a cat and a parrot on a marble console, is in the Louvre, Paris.