Still Life with Wild Fowl

Alexander Adriaenssen, 1632

Stilleven met vogels en vissen. Verder liggen ook een artisjok en een tak met pruimen op de tafel. Rechts een kat.

  • Artwork typepainting
  • Object numberSK-A-2544
  • Dimensionsouter size: depth 8 cm (support incl. frame), support: height 74.3 cm x width 114 cm
  • Physical characteristicsoil on panel

Alexander Adriaenssen

Still Life with Fish, Plums, Artichokes and Dead Birds on a Partially Draped Table with a Cat

1632

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, lower left, on the table edge:Alex Adriaenssen / fe Aº 1632

Scientific examination and reports

  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 3 april 2004
  • technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 23 januari 2006

Provenance

…; collection Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911), The Hague;1H. Henkels, ‘Cézanne and Van Gogh in het Rijksmuseum voor Moderne Kunst in Amsterdam: De collectie van Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993), no. 3/4, pp. 155-287, esp. pp. 168, 236. from whom on loan to the museum, 1907-11 (SK-C-805); donated to the museum from his estate, 1912; on loan to the residence of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, The Hague, 1929-40

Object number: SK-A-2544

Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. Hoogendijk, The Hague

The artist

Biography

Alexander Adriaenssen, the second child of Emanuel (a celebrated composer and lutanist, who died in 1606) and Sibilla Aelin, was baptized in the Sint-Jacobskerk, Antwerp, on 16 January 1587. He was brought up in a house on the Meir, and in 1597/98 enrolled as a pupil of the obscure Artus van Laeck. He became a master, as a painter in watercolour, in the Antwerp guild of St Luke in 1610/11. He married in 1611; Peeter Snayers (1592-1667) and Isabella Brant, the wife of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), were among those who acted as godparents of his six children. He is recorded as having had only one apprentice (in 1632), and as having lived in several Antwerp addresses without ever having owned a house. The inscription on his tombstone in the Sint-Jacobskerk, copied in the nineteenth century, gave his date of death as 30 October 1661.

Adriaenssen’s still lifes are listed in Antwerp deceased estates from 1634. Owners were members of the wealthy bourgeoisie, for instance a cloth and a feather merchant, a surgeon and an innkeeper; the widow of a fishmonger owned at her death in 1655 two still lifes of shells and one of birds. His most prominent Antwerp admirer was his acquaintance Rubens, who owned at his death in 1640 two still lifes of birds and fruit.2E. Duverger, Fontes historiae Artis Neerlandicae Bronnen voor de Kunstgeschiedenis van de Nederlanden: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 13 vols., Brussels 1984-2004, IV, passim. But the greatest testimony to his art took place not in Antwerp, but in Madrid, where in his will of 1652, but effectively during his lifespan, the statesman, great collector and lover of Flemish painting, Diego de Guzmán (1580-1655), Marqués de Leganés, gave six still lifes by Adriaenssen to the king, Philip IV; four of these have survived the vicissitudes of the Spanish royal collection and are in Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.3 J.J. Pérez Preciado, El Marqués de Leganés y las Artes, 2 vols., Madrid 2010 (diss. Universidad Complutense), I, pp. 469-70, 746, 802-03, nos. 1220-1225; M. Díaz Padrón, Museo del Prado: Catálogo de pinturas, I: Escuela flamenca siglo XVII, 2 vols., Madrid 1975, I, under Adriaenssen.

There are some two hundred extant works by Adriaenssen, who has been described as perhaps the most productive fish still life painter in seventeenth-century Antwerp.4F. Meijer, ‘Fish Still Lifes in Holland and Flanders’, in L. Helmus (ed.), Fish Still Lifes by Dutch and Flemish Masters, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 2004, pp. 22-24. Apart from fish he mostly depicted fruit, birds, flowers and game in cabinet paintings.

His portrait by Jacob Deneys (1644-1708) was engraved by Antoon van der Does (1609-1680).5F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, V, p. 246. The rubric reads: ‘Florum Avium et Piscium Pictor Excellens Antverpiae’ (excellent painter of flowers, birds and fish from Antwerp). He was also a heraldic painter, in which capacity he participated in the decorations for the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand’s Joyous Entry into Antwerp in 1635.

REFERENCES
G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, pp. 13-28

Entry

The vegetable is an artichoke, the fruit, plums; beyond are grey gurnard and a carp on a terracotta colander; in the centre are two partridges and a string of songbirds among which are a lark and a goldfinch. Beyond is a basket containing a snipe, duck, kingfisher and an Alpine crow. In a basket beside the table is a partially plucked woodcock.

Some of these motifs appear in other works by Alexander Adriaenssen. The carp on the colander recurs in the still life of 1631 in the Konstmuseum, Gothenburg 6G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 5. and the one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes;7G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 163. the basket recurs in the still life of 1647 in the Národní Galerie, Prague;8G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 64. the right-hand partridge is to be found in a picture of 1640 (whereabouts unknown)9G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 22. and in the State Hermitage Museum painting of seven years later.10G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 58.

An attentive cat seems to have been first introduced into Antwerp fish still lifes by Clara Peeters (1607-after 1634).11P. Hibbs Decoteau, Clara Peeters 1594-ca.1640 and the Development of Still-Life Painting in Northern Europe, Lingen 1992, p. 181 and pl. X, pp. 26, 39 (ill.), 129. In 1631, the earliest year of his dated production, Adriaenssen twice introduced the animal: in a work last recorded in a private German collection,12G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 3. and in the still life in the York City Art Gallery.13G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 7. Unlike the cat in the Rijksmuseum Prodigal Son by Hieronymus Francken II (1578-1623) and Frans Francken II (1581-1642; SK-C-286, no particular significance should be attached to its presence14See Vergara in A. Vergara (ed.), The Art of Clara Peeters, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten)/Madrid (Museo Nacional del Prado) 2016, under no. 10. other then as an amusing observation of the likely goings-on in a larder or kitchen. Artichokes were occasionally included in Adriaenssen’s still lifes; Vergara has traced their growing popularity in paintings from the 1580s onwards.15See Vergara in A. Vergara (ed.), The Art of Clara Peeters, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten)/Madrid (Museo Nacional del Prado) 2016, pp. 31 and 99 under no. 8

The inscribed date of 1632 is within the estimate of the dendrochronological calculation for the use of the support.16See Scientific Examination and Reports.

Gregory Martin, 2022

Literature

G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van der Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 8

Collection catalogues

1911, p. 1, no. 3a; 1976, p. 78, no. A 2544

Citation

G. Martin, 2022, 'Alexander Adriaenssen, Still Life with Fish, Plums, Artichokes and Dead Birds on a Partially Draped Table with a Cat, 1632', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20026469

(accessed 6 December 2025 10:02:11).

Footnotes

  • 1H. Henkels, ‘Cézanne and Van Gogh in het Rijksmuseum voor Moderne Kunst in Amsterdam: De collectie van Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911)’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993), no. 3/4, pp. 155-287, esp. pp. 168, 236.
  • 2E. Duverger, Fontes historiae Artis Neerlandicae Bronnen voor de Kunstgeschiedenis van de Nederlanden: Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 13 vols., Brussels 1984-2004, IV, passim.
  • 3J.J. Pérez Preciado, El Marqués de Leganés y las Artes, 2 vols., Madrid 2010 (diss. Universidad Complutense), I, pp. 469-70, 746, 802-03, nos. 1220-1225; M. Díaz Padrón, Museo del Prado: Catálogo de pinturas, I: Escuela flamenca siglo XVII, 2 vols., Madrid 1975, I, under Adriaenssen.
  • 4F. Meijer, ‘Fish Still Lifes in Holland and Flanders’, in L. Helmus (ed.), Fish Still Lifes by Dutch and Flemish Masters, exh. cat. Utrecht (Centraal Museum) 2004, pp. 22-24.
  • 5F.W.H. Hollstein et al., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700, Amsterdam/Roosendaal 1948-, V, p. 246.
  • 6G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 5.
  • 7G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 163.
  • 8G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 64.
  • 9G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 22.
  • 10G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 58.
  • 11P. Hibbs Decoteau, Clara Peeters 1594-ca.1640 and the Development of Still-Life Painting in Northern Europe, Lingen 1992, p. 181 and pl. X, pp. 26, 39 (ill.), 129.
  • 12G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 3.
  • 13G. Spiessens, Leven en werk van de Antwerpse Schilder Alexander Adriaenssen (1587-1661), Brussels 1990, no. 7.
  • 14See Vergara in A. Vergara (ed.), The Art of Clara Peeters, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten)/Madrid (Museo Nacional del Prado) 2016, under no. 10.
  • 15See Vergara in A. Vergara (ed.), The Art of Clara Peeters, exh. cat. Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten)/Madrid (Museo Nacional del Prado) 2016, pp. 31 and 99 under no. 8
  • 16See Scientific Examination and Reports.