This painting, formerly attributed to Hyacinthe Rigaud, can be attributed to Pieter Boel, a Flemish animal artist whose move to Paris at the end of his life had a decisive impact on French animal painting. In this painting, he presents in an apparent disorder ten studies of dogs (mainly spaniels and greyhounds) alongside the sumptuous study of a stole.

1. Pieter Boel, an animal painter straddling Flanders and France

Pieter Boel, also called Boele or Boule, was born in Antwerp in 1622. He was the son of the engraver Jan Boel and the nephew of the genre and battle-scene artist Cornelis de Wael and Pieter’s brother, Quirin Boel II, became an engraver. He received his artistic instruction firstly from his father and then from the renowned Antwerp animal, still-life and flower painter Jan Fyt (1611-1661) who himself had been apprenticed to the important animal and still-life artist Frans Snyders.

He travelled to Italy in the 1640s and is believed to have visited Rome and lived with his uncle Cornelis de Wael in Genoa as the latter had established himself in that city as a painter and art dealer. However Pieter was back in Antwerp by 1650 and he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1650/51 where he was registered as a wijnmeester, – wine master – a title given to those who were the offspring of established guild members.

Boel continued the influence of Snyders and Fyt, specialising in animals such as dogs and poultry as well as hawks and still life with a strong theme of hunting trophies with dead game and to a lesser extent, fish. He also produced some flower still-life and others of weapons and vanitas paintings. He occasionally contributed the animals to the large canvases of the Rubens influenced Caspar de Crayer (1584-1669) and animals for the landscapist Jan Wildens (1586-1653) as well as collaborating with his master Jan Fyt.

Boel differed stylistically from Fyt in that his brushwork is broader but some of the former’s paintings have been erroneously ascribed to his master. Pieter Boel’s early paintings employ muted tones and he enthusiastically utilised them to convey onto canvas his fascination with the effect of light and shade. He had become enamoured with these shifting contrasts while working in Italy and had been influenced by the still-life painter Guiseppe Recco and the figure and religious artist Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione.

Boel had several students including two sons Balthasar Lucas and Jan Baptist as well as the bird and animal painter David de Coninck and Nicasius Bernaerts whose work is very similar in style and content to his teacher. He was a significant influence on the major French animal painters Alexandre François Desportes (1661-1743) and Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755) and consequently he was a significant influence on the development of French animal painting.

This connection with French animal painting ensued from Boel’s journey to Paris and sometime after 1668, he was resident in the capital. He worked at the Gobelins firm of tapestry manufacturers under the instruction Louis XIV’s court painter Charles le Brun (1619-1690) where he painted cartoons to be made into tapestries depicting birds, animals, fruit and vegetables. It was through this commissioned work that he met and befriended Adam Frans van der Meulen, (1632-1690), the Brussels-born painter of battle scenes who travelled with Louis XIV on his European campaigns recording the engagements.

Pieter Boel’s success in this work resulted in his being awarded the title Peintre Ordinaire du Roy. He portrayed about a hundred different species in these designs and cartoons of which about a quarter were native to Europe, the rest taken from the King’s menagerie at Versailles It was studying the animals in a natural and semi-natural environment and the resultant natural feel with which he imbued them, which made Boel’s work so radical and influential. Gobelins recognised the significance of this and retained his studies and paintings in their collection. [1]

He died in Paris on 3rd September 1674.

2. Description of the artwork

Our painting is the painted equivalent of a drawn study. It presents ten studies of hunting dogs and one study of a stole, in a great apparent disorder that conceals a rigorous organization in four quarters.

The studies of the stole and of two of the dogs (the greyhound in the lower right and the spaniel in the upper right quarter) are quite advanced, while those of the other dogs are barely sketched. The dog in the upper right-hand corner, for example, is only partially represented. The dogs' coats of various colors - brown, sandy, gray or black - stand out against the warm brown background, illuminated by the brilliance of their white hair. This color, probably executed with ceruse white, is repeated in the study of the stole in the lower left corner, whose red color warms the composition.

The purpose of this stole is enigmatic: we think that it is probably a neckband, but it could also be a sash or a saddle ornament. To the right of this stole, we note the sketch of a long animal leg, depicted in the opposite direction to the rest of the composition. This could be a horse's leg, supporting the hypothesis of a saddle ornament.

3. Related artworks

Most of Boel's works are executed on canvas, but there are also a few oil studies on paper, which are interestingly related to our panel.

We reproduce in the photo gallery a Study of Dogs in the Musée du Louvre, in which the technique used to depict the greyhounds in the background seems quite like that used to represent the one at the top of our panel.

The use of an orange-brown background is very characteristic of Boel's studies. It can be seen in the many studies of exotic animals he produced at the Gobelins, as well as in this study on paper mounted on canvas, sold in 2010 by Christie's in New York. Although attributed at the time to Alexandre Desportes, it has since been returned to Pieter Boel.[2]

Despite the fact that we only have a poor photo of this work, we also thought it would be interesting to compare the dog in the lower right-hand quarter of our panel with the one that appears, inverted but with the same characteristic collar, on a painting housed at the New York Historical Society.[3]

4. Framing

We have chosen to frame this painting in a Louis XIII period frame, whose original, well-worn gilding delicately enhances the shimmering whites of the painting amidst the brown and orange chromatic variations of the composition.

[1] Many of them are now on display in French regional museums.

[2] https://rkd.nl/images/225641

[3] https://rkd.nl/images/18915