Jacobus Victor (Amsterdam, ca. 1640 – 1705), Still life with hen, doves and chicks

Jacobus Victor (Amsterdam, ca. 1640 – 1705)

Living nature with hen, pigeons and chicks

Oil on canvas, 85 x 106,5 cm

With frame 104 x 123 cm

Signed in the center on the pillar Jacomo Victor

This refined living nature is part of the work of Jacobus Victor, a Dutch painter active in the 17th century and a specialist in depicting farmyard animals, pigeons, and various birds. The work is part of the solid tradition of vogelstukken, a genre in which the artist excelled thanks to his keen observation and his meticulous and brilliant rendering of the animals' plumage, light reflections, and movements. The canvas, signed with the Italianized form of his name—Jacomo Victor—is likely dated to the 1670s. The scene is set in a farmyard: on the left is part of a wooden birdcage. In the foreground, a brood of chicks is moving: watching over this lively swarm is a hen, depicted in profile, likely an ornamental hen of the Frizzle breed, characterized by its distinctive curly plumage. The right section of the composition is dominated by two doves, a recurring subject in the painter's repertoire (Hamburg, Kunsthalle; Brussels, Royal Museums of Fine Arts): one, with gray plumage, perches on a perforated brick, while the other, with a reddish plumage, rests on a fragment of an antique-style plinth. A soft, diffuse light, with an atmospheric quality, defines the volumes and makes the surfaces of the feathers vibrate with an almost tactile finesse. The color palette, based on grays, browns, and pearly tones, demonstrates a strong assimilation of Venetian painting, particularly that which in the 17th century influenced many Northern painters drawn to the Bassano tradition and the animal painting styles such as that of Giovanni Agostino Cassana. Jacobus Victors was born around 1640 to Louis Victor and Maria Paeuw; he was the half-brother of the better-known Jan Victors, a pupil of Rembrandt, and brother of the painter Victor Victors. According to critical tradition, Victor trained in the workshop of Jan Baptist Weenix, where he worked alongside Melchior Hondecoeter, the great master of bird painting. It is documented that Victor spent a period in Italy, probably in the years immediately preceding 1670: he is mentioned in Venice as early as 1663 by Martinioni, who describes him as "Jacopo Fichtor, Dutch... admirable in the formation of flying animals." On the back of the canvas is a label from Lenygon and Morant Inc., a prestigious Anglo-American firm active between the 19th and 20th centuries, renowned for the production of period-style furnishings and for its ability to recreate complete environments. The firm, founded by Francis H. Lenygon, distinguished itself by acquiring entire period complexes, including a Dutch Painted Room from Groningen, demonstrating a strong interest in 17th-century Dutch art. The work reveals the harmonious fusion of real-life observation and compositional elegance, giving the viewer a small rural theatre animated by living, familiar presences.

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