A cat protecting game from a dog in a landscape

Dirk Valkenburg, a native of Amsterdam, was a pupil of the celebrated game-piece painter Jan Weenix, according to J. van Gool, De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlandsche Kuntschilders en Schilderessen, 1742, II, pp. 477-87. After his apprenticeship, Valkenburg received important commissions in Germany and Austria from Baron Knebel van Katznell-Enbogen and Prince Adam von Lichtenstein. On his return to Holland in around 1700 his popularity continued to rise, and William III of Orange commissioned him to decorate Het Loo Palace with hunting canvases. Because of his skilful rendering of plants and animals, he was contracted by Jonas Witsen to work in Surinam, to record the tropical flora and fauna of the Dutch colony. He is recognised as one of the last great practitioners of the Dutch game-piece.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for providing the attribution on the basis of a photograph.