FYT, Jan
(b. 1611, Antwerpen, d. 1661, Antwerpen)

Concert of Birds

1658
Oil on canvas, 120 x 172 cm
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

According to the principle of selection and in a clear iconographical reference to Snyders, Fyt has assembled a bouquet of the finest, most striking birds. With his eye-strewn plumage, a peacock - the bird sacred to Juno, mother of the gods of antiquity - lends noble and radiant beauty to the whole picture. A Brazilian parrot, a crowing cockerel with a comb, a gallinaceous bird and two herons are each adding their own song to the cacophonous concert of cawing, screeching, squawking, crowing and cooing. Meanwhile, a jay looks wonderingly at a blank music book that has wedged itself in a bough, at the foot of which lies a dead dove.