REMBRANDT Harmenszoon van Rijn
(b. 1606, Leiden, d. 1669, Amsterdam)

Still-Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl

c. 1639
Oil on canvas, 145 x 135 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Catalogue number: Bredius 456.

A dead peacock hangs upside down in space, its wings spread wide and its beak pathetically gaping. A second bird lies lifeless and heavy on a tabletop; its head protrudes over the edge, casting a slanting shadow. The blood dripping onto the floor injects a macabre visual stimulus and lends the painting a sense of immediacy. A girl is looking at the basket of fruit, its shapes modelled by light, through a window in the background: rarely has seeing been so convincingly painted. The picture of the girl represents not a portrait but a type, a character head. She is painted as a young child expressing her wonder at the world.

The true subject of the spiritedly executed canvas is painting itself, its rhythmic line and its open display. The subject has its forerunners in Flemish pantry and kitchen scenes and food still-lifes by artists such as Frans Snyders, Adriaen van Utrecht, Jan Fyt and Pieter Boel; Jan Baptist Weenix would later occupy an important position in the development of the game still-life, and Chardin, too, would draw upon this tradition.