Studies of a Fox

Pieter Boel painted animals as if they were alive in front of him, because they often were. His hunting scenes, dead game still lifes and big vanitas pictures crowded with armour, skulls and precious objects have a loose, lively brush and warm tones in the Flemish tradition of Frans Snyders. Baptised in Antwerp in 1622, he trained with Jan Fyt and travelled in Italy, staying in Genoa and Rome. By 1668 he was in Paris, living at the Gobelins tapestry works under Charles Le Brun. There he made studies of animals in the royal menagerie at Versailles, working from life rather than from stuffed specimens, and these served as models for tapestries and later inspired Jean-Baptiste Oudry. He was named painter to Louis XIV in 1674, the year he died. His Large Vanitas Still Life is in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille. In Hounds Assailing a Boar, look at the energy of the dogs.