Van Aelst depicts a number of dead animals hanging above, and resting upon, a blue, gold-trimmed hunter’s game pouch that lies on a stone ledge. He painted the animals so precisely that most of them can be identified. The scene is dominated by a European hare (Lepus europaeus) and a large white rooster. A European partridge (Perdix perdix) hangs before the legs of the hare, while in the upper left an adult kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) and a common wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe) are suspended from the same string as two falconer’s hoods. Another large bird, possibly a black rooster, is partially hidden and cannot be identified. The animals must have been killed by a falcon, as no bullet wounds are visible.
The tightly cropped and carefully orchestrated composition is characteristic of Van Aelst’s paintings from the 1650s and 1660s. Through his use of light, color, and texture, Van Aelst focuses our attention on the animals and the game pouch. He carefully records the various textures of the fur, feathers, stone, and satin, and even includes a fly on the rooster’s comb. The dark background gives the scene a somber, almost brooding quality. The impact of the painting, however, comes from its extraordinary illusionism, and one wonders whether it was installed in such a way that its trompe l’oeil qualities were enhanced. The trompe l’oeil illusionism of the design is compromised by the way the strap of the game pouch is cut by the lower edge of the painting. Hence, one wonders whether the design was originally intended to be onto its frame or onto the wall itself. One could also imagine that illusionistic nails could have been painted above the composition from which the dead game would have appeared to hang. Despite its exceptional state of preservation, the painting no longer looks today as it did when Van Aelst executed it. Technical examinations have revealed that the brilliant blue game bag was initially green in color. Van Aelst painted the bag with a mixture of natural ultramarine and a yellow lake, which proved to be fugitive.
Such paintings may have been collected by rich burghers who owned game parks and hunting lodges. Scott Sullivan has argued that these paintings appealed to the aristocratic aspirations of the Dutch burgher because hunting and falconry traditionally had been pastimes of the Dutch nobility. The diversity of animals indicates that Van Aelst composed the scene from a repertoire of studies that he had made after specific models. Virtually the same kingfisher, hanging in a similar position, occurs in a signed and dated 1664 painting (Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). The game pouch is also found in other Van Aelst paintings, such as Still Life with Game and Hunting Gear (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe).
That Van Aelst’s painting was intended to represent the general theme of the hunt rather than the spoils of a specific outing is evident from the relief on the front of the stone ledge depicting Diana, the chaste goddess of the hunt, and Actaeon, a mortal huntsman who surprised her at her bath. Diana, visible between the shoulder straps of the game pouch, leans over to splash water on Actaeon. He recoils, but stag horns are already sprouting from his head as punishment for his intrusion. Van Aelst’s relief is based on one of the most famous mannerist compositions, Paulus van Vianen’s gilded silver plaquette of 1612 [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Paulus van Vianen, Diana and Actaeon, 1612, gilded silver plaquette, Centraal Museum, Utrecht. The exquisite works of both Paulus and his older brother Adam elicited great admiration in the seventeenth century, and their silver basins and ewers appear frequently in paintings by Dutch artists. Intricate silver vessels, similar to those created by the Van Vianens, occur in a number of Van Aelst’s flower still lifes. As Rudiger Klessmann has pointed out, artists included these finely wrought objects in their biblical and mythological paintings as symbols of worldly treasures that should be forsaken for more lasting values. In this instance, because Van Aelst has depicted a stone relief rather than the gilded silver plaquette, he emphasizes instead the thematic relationship of the story of Diana and Actaeon to the hunt.
The juxtaposition of the relief with the dead game may also have been chosen for moralizing reasons. The story of Diana and Actaeon frequently was interpreted in Dutch seventeenth-century literature as a warning against succumbing to sensual pleasure. Actaeon’s downfall resulted from his unregulated desires, which led him to overstep the bounds of chastity by peering at Diana. The partridge, hare, and rooster hanging above the relief are all animals that, like Actaeon, are associated with unbridled lust. Thus, the unusual array of animals in this trophy painting may have less to do with the specifics of a hunt than with the underlying iconographic content of the painting. The entire scene, painted with such trompe l’oeil illusionism, probably also alluded to the transience of sensual pleasure.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
