The artist : Art Gallery of New South Wales

Frans Snyders was the leading still-life and animal painter active in the Southern Netherlands in the seventeenth century. He served his apprenticeship with Pieter II Brueghel and also studied with Hendrick van Balen. He became a master in the Antwerp painters' guild in 1602. In 1608-09 he was in Italy where he visited Rome and Milan. Following his return to Antwerp he was employed frequently by Rubens for whom he painted animals and still life elements. From the 1610s he specialised increasingly in hunting scenes, from 1636 producing some 60 such works under Rubens' direction for the King of Spain Phillip IV for the Torre de la Parada and Palacio Real in Madrid. Snyders collaborated with various figure painters besides Rubens and on occasion with the landscape painter Jan Wildens. He ran a prolific workshop which produced numerous replicas of his compositions. His works have often been confused with those of his son-in-law, Paul de Vos. His pupil, Jan Fyt, produced works of similar subject matter yet in a distinctive style.

Portrait of Frans Snyders, by Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599 - 1641)
Frans Snyders, c.1620
Frick Collection, New York, Henry Clay Frick Bequest


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