Still Life with Dead Rabbit and Birds, 1681

About the Work

Since the Middle Ages, hunting had been the preserve of the aristocracy. Hunting still lifes depicting the kill were a reminder of this privilege and gave their owners a sense of participating in the aristocratic lifestyle, whether they themselves were of noble or only affluent middle-class birth. Paintings like this large-scale still life by Jan Weenix were accordingly popular in the second half of the seventeenth century, not least of all among newly wealthy Dutch merchants, trade magnates and large-scale investors.