Studies of a Fox
by BOEL, Pieter, Oil on canvas, 53 x 65 cm
Pieter Boel was trained by Frans Snyders, a collaborator of Rubens specialising in still-lifes and animal painting. He went to Paris to join the group working under the direction of Le Brun at the Manufacture des Gobelins around 1668-69, and was asked to provide the cartoons for the animals in the foreground of tapestries. Between 1669 and 1671 he executed eighty-one studies after the birds and mammals of the menagerie of the château of Versailles.