Still Life with Goose and Game before a Country Estate

c. 1685

Jan Weenix

Painter, Dutch, 1642 - 1719

The limp, dead bodies of a swan, rabbit, and three birds along with a live bird and a small dog are arranged on and near a low stone step in the bottom left corner of this horizontal painting. To our left and close to us, the white swan lies on its back on the step with its wings partly extended. Its long neck drapes toward us over the rabbit’s body, the bird’s head turned to our left. The rabbit has tawny-brown fur and lies stretched out on its side, its belly facing away from us. Tucked in the lower left corner of the painting, a fowl has a round body with cream-white and chestnut-brown feathers. The beaks of two more dead birds peek out from the shadows beyond the rabbit’s body. Behind the dead animals and taking up the left third of the painting, the square base of a fawn-brown stone column nearly reaches the top edge of the canvas. The front face is carved with a relief showing a woman and man huddled together as they look down in front of them, seemingly toward the swan. A yellow flower with narrow, tapered petals hangs over the upper left corner of the base and lavender-purple flowers, perhaps roses, peek around the base from our right. To our right of the dead animals, a bird with black, smoke-gray, and white feathers stands facing away from us with its wings flared back. Its emerald-green and gold head gleams in the stark light illuminating the scene from the lower left. It turns its head toward a small dog in the lower right corner. The dog has white and pale, honey-brown fur, a round face, blunt nose, and sable-brown floppy ears. The dog’s back half is cut off by the edge of the painting, and it seems to lean back as it looks toward the bird. A grapevine with broad, curling leaves winds into the painting behind and above the dog, ending with scrolling tendrils at the center of the composition. The leaves are fern green, some fading to a pale sage green or tan, and edged in brown. One leaf over the dog’s head is crimson red and tan, and a glistening cluster of green grapes lies on the ground near the dog’s front paws, to our left. Beyond the live bird and dog, a deep landscape opens up with statues lining a stepped walkway that leads to a rectangular reflecting pool. Several black and white birds the size of ducks stand in the shadowed background near the pool and more birds fly overhead. Backlit by the amber-gold sunset, tall trees with thin black trunks and caramel-brown leaves line the path leading to a tall narrow structure at the water’s edge. The golden sunset fades to a pale blue sky with drifting clouds over low mountains in the deep distance.

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The setting for this large and imposing game piece is an imaginary formal garden similar to those associated with patrician estates being built in the Netherlands in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Jan Weenix has used a large plinth decorated with a relief sculpture as the backdrop for an array of game and fruit. Weenix's proficiency in rendering materials and textures is particularly evident in the feathers of the goose and the fur of the hare. This still life has distinct Christian connotations related to death and resurrection. The relief sculpture on the plinth represents the Holy Family, with the Christ Child asleep just below the rose, a flower symbolizing the Virgin’s sorrows. The calendula, too, carries associations with death (its Dutch name, dodenbloem, means "death flower"). The startled dove flying away from the goose relates symbolically to the release of the soul after death. In conceiving this iconography, Weenix probably followed the specific wishes of a patron.

Weenix, one of the finest and most celebrated Dutch game painters, was probably taught by his father, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621–1660/1661), who specialized in Italianate campagnas and harbor scenes. Weenix's works are distinguished from those of his father by their more elegant figures, subtler coloring, and refined brushwork. After 1680 Weenix specialized in elegant still lifes of dead game birds, flowers, and statuary, which he painted for the Amsterdam elite. From about 1702 to 1714, the artist served as court painter to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm von der Pflaz in Düsseldorf.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 50

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Patrons' Permanent Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 142.9 x 172.4 cm (56 1/4 x 67 7/8 in.)
    framed: 173.4 x 202.3 x 14.9 cm (68 1/4 x 79 5/8 x 5 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    2004.39.1

More About this Artwork

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Still Life with Swan and Game before a Country Estate, c. 1685

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Gerret Braamcamp [1699-1771], Amsterdam, by 1752;[1] (his estate sale, Philippe van der Schley, Amsterdam, 31 July 1771 and days following, no. 257); John Hope [1737-1784], Amsterdam;[2] his estate, Amsterdam and London; by inheritance to his youngest son, Henry Philip Hope [1774-1839], London;[3] by inheritance to his nephew, Henry Thomas Hope [1808-1862], London and Deepdene, near Dorking, Surrey;[4] by inheritance to his widow, Adèle Bichat Hope [d. 1884], London and Deepdene; by inheritance to her grandson, Henry Francis Hope Pelham-Clinton-Hope, 8th duke of Newcastle-under-Lyme [1866-1941], London, Deepdene, and Clumber Park, Nottingham.[5] (Galerie Charles Brunner, Paris), by 1923.[6] Mme G. Brière, 1928. acquired c. 1930 by private collection, Paris; by descent in this family;[7] (sale, Sotheby's, New York, 23 January 2003, no. 21, as A Still Life of Game by a Stone Monument, including, a Swan, a Hare, Game Birds, a Spaniel, a Jay and a Pigeon in Flight, an Extensive Water Garden Beyond, bought in); purchased 10 March 2004 by NGA by private contract with (Sotheby's).
[1] Gerard Hoet, Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen, met derzelver pryzen. . . 3 vols., The Hague, 1752: 2:511.
[2] For a detailed account of the Hope Collection and the family history, see J.W. Niemeijer, "De kunstverzameling van John Hope (1737-1784)," Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981): 127-232; see also Marten G. Buist, At Spes Non Fracta: Hope & Co. 1770–1815: Merchant Bankers and Diplomats at Work, The Hague, 1974: 42-43, 49. John Hope's estate, which was left to his three sons--Thomas (1769-1831), Adrian Elias (1772-1834) and Henry Philip (1774-1839)--was administered by the children's mother, Philippina Barbara van der Hoeven and their father's cousin, Henry Hope (c. 1739-1811), who ran the family firm. After the mother's death in 1789, Henry Hope assumed control of the collection of paintings in Amsterdam. In 1791 the three sons received the division of their mother's estate and a partial division of their father's estate. The collection of paintings was not divided, however, but remained in the estate. On 18 June 1794, Thomas Hope, having attained his legal majority, received his inheritance, but he received no part of the collection, which continued to remain in his father's estate, and which was taken by Henry Hope to London in 1794 when he and other members of the family fled the invading French army. In London, Henry Hope maintained possession of the collection, and on 17 December 1795 he signed insurance lists of "Pictures in the House No. 1 the corner of Harley Street, belonging to Mr. Henry Hope."
[3] It is not clear when, and for what reason, Henry Philip Hope became the sole heir of the paintings, but he seems to have inherited the collection no later than 1819. After Henry Hope's death in 1811, possession of the collection presumably went to Thomas Hope, with whom it remained because of Henry Philip Hope's peripatetic life (see: Niemeijer 1981, 169). Thomas kept most of the paintings in his two London residences; first at 2, Hanover Square and, after 1819, off Portland Place in Duchess Street, where he designed and built a special gallery to house the collection (see: David Watkin, Thomas Hope 1769-1831 and the Neo-Classical Idea, London, 1968: 93). NGA 2004.39.1 was seen in Thomas Hope's cabinet by C.M. Westmacott (British Galleries of Painting and Sculpture..., London, 1824: 237).
[4] Henry Thomas Hope maintained the property and its collections on Duchess Street until 1851, when he moved to a new residence in Piccadilly (see: Niemeijer 1981, 170; and Ben Broos et al., Great Dutch Paintings from America, exh. cat., Mauritshuis, The Hague; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Hague, 1990: 422.)
[5] Lord Pelham-Clinton-Hope lent the painting to the South Kensington Museum in London from 1891 to 1898. The 2003 Sotheby's sale catalogue indicates that the painting was sold at a Christie, Manson & Woods sale in London, 25-27 July 1917, as lot no. 292. However, this sale (one of several Hope sales in 1917) was a sale of the Hope library, and lot no. 292 was a book by Sir H.C. Englefield, Walk through Southampton. The Hope sale at Christie's on 20 July 1917, of "pictures by old masters and family portraits," included only 127 lots and no painting by Weenix is listed in the catalogue.
[6] The date is according to a photograph in the Witt Library fiche. There is a red wax seal on the reverse of the painting's stretcher, embossed "GALERIE BRUNNER."
[7] According to the provenance in the 2003 Sotheby's sale catalogue.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1891

  • Pictures of the Dutch and Flemish Schools lent to the South Kensington Museum by Lord Francis Pelham-Clinton-Hope, South Kensington Museum, London, 1891, no. 46.

Bibliography

1752

  • Hoet, Gerard. Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen. 2 vols. The Hague, 1752: 2:511.

1766

  • Bastide, Jean François de. Le temple des arts ou le cabinet de M. Braamcamp. Amsterdam, 1766: 88.

1795

  • Catalogue B of pictures in the house No. 1 the corner of Harley Street, belonging to Mr. Henry Hope, on which is ensured ten thousand pounds. London, 1795: unpaginated.

1824

  • Westmacott, C.M. British Galleries of Painting and Sculpture Comprising a General Historical and Critical Catalogue with Separate Notices of Every Work of Fine Art in the Principal Collections. London, 1824: 237.

1854

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss.. 3 vols. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. London, 1854: 2:124.

1961

  • Bille, Clara. De Tempel der Kunst of Het Kabinet van den Heer Braamcamp. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1961: 1:33, 64, 65, 81, 106, repro.; 2:62-62a, 128, no. 257.

1976

  • Hoet, Gerard. Catalogus of naamlyst van schilderyen. 3 vols. Reprint of 1752 ed. with supplement by Pieter Terwesten, 1770. Soest, 1976: 2:511.

1981

  • Niemeijer, J. W. "De kunstverzameling van John Hope (1737–1784)." Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 32 (1981): 148, 203, no. 292.

2003

  • Waagen, Gustav Friedrich. Treasures of Art in Great Britain. Translated by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake. Facsimile edition of London 1854. London, 2003: 2:124.

2004

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Jan Weenix, Still Life with Swan and Game before a Country Estate" National Gallery of Art Bulletin, no. 32 (Fall 2004): 18, repro.

Wikidata ID

Q20177680

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