English: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 20:

Technical notes: The painting is in rather poor condition,being heavily abraded and extensively retouched. Alayer of discoloured old varnish is present and the paintsurface is encrusted with dirt. Coarse, now discoloured,retouching is visible throughout the animals and landscape,in the boar, in the dog with a black-and-white mottledcoat, the dog in the right foreground, the head of thedog in the left foreground, the head of the dog at the farright, in the foreground landscape and vegetation; withscattered retouches in the sky and in the foliage at theupper right. Contours have been reinforced along thechest and outstretched left leg and paw of the hound in theright foreground. The painting underwent conservationtreatment in 1985.

Provenance: (Sale, Bukowskis, Stockholm, 6–7 December1918, lot 88, as Frans Snyders); Mr. Hallén, Stockholm.(Sale, Bukowskis, Stockholm, 5–6 December 1949,lot 112); Miss Agda Holst, Kristianstad. (Lindkvist &Sjöberg AB, Stockholm, by 1984). Purchased in 1984.

Exhibited: Stockholm 2010, no. 44.

Six hunting dogs chase a wild boar. The scene is set inthe foreground of a wooded landscape opening uptowards a distant valley on the left. As the huge boarleaps in profile to the left, several hounds lunge to bitethe creature or race in hot pursuit, while others tumbleperilously underfoot in the foreground.Depictions of hunting scenes occurred in medievalmanuscript illuminations and tapestries, often includedin representations of the labours of the months, a traditionthat was continued in the 16th century in the tapestrydesigns of Barent van Orley and prints by Jan vander Straet (Stradanus) and Phillip Galle. Early in the17th century, as Balis has shown, the hunting theme wasgiven a new impetus by Peter Paul Rubens, who revitalizedthe subject with a new dynamism and spontaneity,1closely followed by his contemporary, the Antwerp animaland still life painter Frans Snyders. Although Snyders’game pieces and still lifes far outnumber his huntingscenes, Robels listed fifteen boar hunts by theartist.2While in Rubens’ hunting scenes, man is alwaysat the centre of the conflict, whether in a mythological,contemporary, or exotically fanciful context, Robels hasshown that in Snyders’ work, even at the outset of hiscareer, man is but a marginal player and soon disappearsaltogether as the artist concentrates on the combat ofanimals. Very often Snyders chose to depict themoment when the dogs at last overtake their prey – theclimax of the chase and the moment of greatest dangerfor both the hunters and the hunted.This hunting piece entered the collections in 1984 asa work of Snyders and was considered as such until itspresent reattribution to an unidentified artist in the circleof the Antwerp still life- and animal painter PieterBoel.3A painting depicting a Boar Hunt in a private collectionin Barcelona, attributed by Robels to Snyders(and Paul de Vos?),4 and the artist’s larger, more complex,signed painting of the same subject in Boston(Museum of Fine Arts),5 which employ the same unifyingdevice of a boar lunging from right to left across thescene with dogs in hot pursuit or tumbling underfoot,both anticipate the action of the Vadstena picture.Robels suggested that the Barcelona painting, whichshe dates to the 1620s, preceded the Boston picture, the“most important work from [Snyders’] middle period,about 1625–1630”, which elaborates the design into alarger and considerably wider composition. The formalrelationship between the Barcelona and Vadstena compositionsseems particularly close. Snyders’ hunting

scenes inspired many contemporary artists, beingrepeated in numerous copies and variants produced bythe artist’s own Antwerp workshop as well as by artistsin his circle. The Barcelona boar hunting scene is noexception: its composition was widely known and frequentlycopied throughout the 17th century. Robels listssix painted copies and variant versions, the latter differingonly in details like the individual hounds and landscapesetting. She also mentions an engraving, inscribed“Sneidre invenit/F. Desportes pinxit”, executed byFrançois Joullain after a painted copy of Snyders’ originalby French artist François Desportes, official painterof hunting scenes and animals to King Louis XIV, whoworked in the tradition of Flemish animal painting.6Peter Boel employed a design similar to that of theBarcelona and Boston pictures in works such as hisBoar Hunt in Brussels (Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts)7 As Robels points out, Boel also produced anetching (Holl.III, 7) that is a close variant, in reverse,of the Barcelona original and an engraving by LucasVorsterman I after Boel’s composition indicates that adesign closely related to that of the Barcelona picturewas associated with Boel in the 17th century.8

While the overall design of the present painting andsome of the animals, such as the boar, the hound on thefar left and the one with a mottled black-and-whitecoat, seem derived from Snyders’ composition, otherdogs, especially those in the foreground and at the farright, are more closely related to those in huntingscenes by Boel and his best pupil, David de Coninck.The two dogs lying prostrate in the foreground occurin identical fashion in a signed Boar Hunt by De Coninckin Prague (Národní Galerie).9 The treatment ofthe landscape in the Vadstena picture, for example, theriverbank at the lower left, also seems stylistically relatedto Boel’s work. The painting may even have beenexecuted in Boel’s prolific workshop.CF

1 Balis 1986, 50ff.2 Robels 1989, pp. 39–41, cat.nos. 221–236. Only the late works are dated,but Robels believed that Snyders’ earliest boar hunt was one which featureda peasant with a pike and dated it to c. 1615 (Rome, GalleriaNazionale d’Arte Antica, Galleria Corsini, inv. no. 482); for which see hercat. no. 221.3 Fred G. Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, kindly put at the author’s disposala vast amount of comparative visual material on the artists PieterBoel and David de Coninck collected over a period of many years, thestudy of which allowed for the present reattribution of Vadstena 1.4 Oil on canvas, 201 x 340, Barcelona, priv. coll., for which see Robels 1989,cat. no. 225, as possibly executed with the collaboration of Paul de Vos.5 Oil on canvas, 221 x 501, signed “F. Snÿers fecit”, Boston, Museum ofFine Arts, inv. no. 17.322, for which see ibid, cat. no. 226.6 For a list of these copies and variants see ibid, cat.nos. 225a–225f.7 Oil on canvas, 178 x 236 cm, Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, inv.no. 3901. Formerly attributed to Jan Fyt, the latter picture has been convincinglyreattributed to Boel by Fred G. Meijer of the RKD. Cf. a signedpainting by the artist of a boar hunt (oil on canvas, 184 x 255 cm) in theStaatliches Museum Schloss Mosigkau.8 Hollstein, III, 58, no. 7. Cf. a painting attributed to Boel (oil on canvas,165 x 239), in the Collection of Lord Hesketh, Easton Neston, Towcester,which is identical to the composition reproduced in the etching,except for the landscape.9 Oil on canvas, 166 x 239 cm, signed “D. Koninck”, Národní Galerie, inv.no. DO 5016. In the same collection is also a Lion Hunt by the artist, oilon canvas, 166 x 240 cm, inv. no. DO 4350. For the dog with a shaggycoat in the left foreground, cf. also a lost painting of a Stag Hunt signed byConinck (formerly in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. A 72, destroyedin 1943); and for the dog partially visible at the far right cf. a chalk drawingof a dog’s head currently attributed to De Coninck by Meijer, in Edinburgh

(National Gallery of Scotland, inv. no. RSA 411, as C. Saftleven). [End]