NARRATOR:
The Flemish painter Jan Fyt was especially skilled at depicting animals and still lifes. Born in Antwerp in 1611, he was apprenticed to a painter when he was only 10 years old. As was customary for an aspiring artist, he traveled and worked extensively throughout Europe before he was accepted as a master into the painters’ guild. Fyt was strongly influenced by his teacher, Frans Snyders.
Fyt’s work is celebrated for its warm, luminous palette and its realistic depiction of different textures, like fur and plumage. Just look at how meticulously the artist renders the thick, soft coat of the dead hares, or the glistening feathers of the birds. The rich, earthy colors of animals are set off by swaths of luxuriant red and white drapery, depicted with masterful attention to every fold and wrinkle. This display may seem casual. But, in fact, it is very carefully planned. The artist leads our eye from the head of the rabbit on the left up a string that takes us to the top of the picture. Then, he plunges our eyes back down along the white belly of the hare, whose ear leads us off to the the cat in the darkened corner, a delightful surprise that adds a touch of narrative drama as it sniffs the spoils of the day’s hunt.
Still Life with a Red Curtain
c. 1660
Jan Fyt (Flemish, 1611-1661)
On View
Jan Fyt, a prosperous Antwerp artist who enjoyed the patronage of numerous important collectors, was a prolific painter of still lifes. Perhaps his greatest contribution to the genre was the game piece, a distinct category devoted to the hunt, in which the results of the day’s efforts are gathered for contemplation. Here, the hunter’s trophies—hares, ducks and songbirds—are formally arranged in a pyramidal scheme, with the suspended hare marking the center of the tabletop. This painting is an occasion for Fyt’s bravura display of brushwork in the laying down of fur and feathers and the warm, tonal palette. Below the catch, the foils of red drapery and white linen furnish the ensemble with dramatic flair.
Depictions of bagged animals, commissioned by the nobility, date back to the Renaissance. In seventeenth-century Europe, hunting remained, for the most part, the privilege of the nobility. Owning such a painting betokened social prestige, whether or not it recorded the spoils of a specific hunt. Fyt’s game pieces were eagerly acquired by the urban elite to decorate their houses and thereby associate themselves with a lifestyle reserved for aristocrats.
Details
- Artist Name: Jan Fyt (Flemish, 1611-1661)
- Title: Still Life with a Red Curtain
- Date: c. 1660
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 43 x 62-1/2 in. (109.2 x 158.8 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1972.36.3.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Probably Richard Sutton, 4th Baronet of Lexington (1863), by inheritance to;
Sir Robert V. Sutton, 8th Baronet of Lexington, Wincanton, Somerset (sale, London, Christie's, 29 January 1971, lot 61, to;
[Hallsborough].
[Edward Speelman, Ltd., London, sold 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Sir Robert V. Sutton, 8th Baronet of Lexington, Wincanton, Somerset (sale, London, Christie's, 29 January 1971, lot 61, to;
[Hallsborough].
[Edward Speelman, Ltd., London, sold 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[loan to]
- London, British Institution, 1863 to 1863
Masterpieces of Five Centuries, Forty-Eight Paintings and Sculptures from the Norton Simon Foundation and the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum
- Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 1972-10-04 to 1973-11-04
Significant Objects: The Spell of Still Life
- Norton Simon Museum, 2012-07-20 to 2013-01-21
Tulips are in Bloom
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-04-29 to 1993-08
- Graves, Algernon, A Century of Loan Exhibitions 1813-1912, 1914, p. 367
- Greindl, Edith, Les peintures flamands de nature morte au XVII siècle, 1983, no. 83 p. 349
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 844 p. 344
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