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

Diana with Her Hunting Dogs beside Kill

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Oil on canvas, 79 x 116 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Game still-lifes were closely connected with kitchen scenes and pantry motifs, of which they were in many ways a special form. While the social context of a kitchen is not always obvious and may be either the household of the landed gentry or the merchant patrician classes, the majority of early, large-format game still-lifes reflected the interests and spheres of royalty and nobility. The hunt as an aristocratic privilege had only just began to emerge at the beginning of early modern times. Hunts were captured in the form of large-scale panoramic paintings. Also there were numerous glorified transpositions of real hunting scenes into mythological ones. This painting shows an example of this approach.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 9 minutes):
Joseph Haydn: The Seasons, Part 3 Autumn, aria and chorus (Hunters' chorus)