A spaniel with a macaw, blue tit, bluejay and a bullfinch with fruit in a landscape

‘Menageries’ were aristocratic collections of exotic animals that were displayed in gardens or parks of stately homes and palaces. Collections of extravagant imported animals have existed in Europe since the Middle Ages. One of the most famous was the royal menagerie at the Tower of London, where an elephant was documented in the mid-13^th Century. These menageries became increasingly popular in the late 17th and 18^th Centuries, when Versailles, the Habsburg court, and many other royal and aristocratic sites extended their collections of captive animals to amuse the monarchs and their entourage, and the wall with balustrade and niche in the background of the present work may refer to this tradition.

It was in this environment that Hungarian painter Jakob Bogdani came into the service of Queen Anne (1665-1714), specialising in painting exotic birds, which he may have seen in the Windsor Park aviary. The present lot is an eloquent example of his work: a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (named after Charles II (1630-1685), Queen Anne's grandfather) barks at a group of colourful birds: a great tit, an Eurasian jay, a bullfinch, and a red macaw.