Open Landscape with Poultry and Waterfowl
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1670 - 1680
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
3620 x 5359 mm (142 1/2 x 211 in)
Place of origin
Holland
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 436163
Caption
This is one of a set of decorative pictures, painted reasonably early in Hondecoeter’s career, all of which are signed (another comparable set is now in the Alte Pinacothek, Munich). It is not known where in the Low Countries these scenes were originally painted for, or even if they were originally intended to hang together. Even before coming to Belton in 1873, they had been cut and adapted to fit another house in England. A fourth canvas, with Orpheus playing to the animals, could not be fitted in, and is now in a private collection in USA. The paintings were restored between 1985 and 1991 at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Open Landscape with Poultry and Waterfowl by Melchior de Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 – Amsterdam 1695), bears traces of signature, circa 1670/80. An open landscape with numerous domesticated and wild birds. They are in the air, perched in trees and on the ground. A small figure of a hunter is in the background. One of three large paintings by Hondecoeter which hang in the room named after him at Belton House. The paintings were acquired in 1873 by the 3rd Earl Brownlow. Hondecoeter specialised in painting groups of birds in landscape settings which in both number and variety would not normally be seen in nature. In this painting domesticated breeds such as a peacock, turkey and chickens are seen alongside many wild birds including herons, pheasants and song birds.
Provenance
Bought by Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (1844 - 1921) in 1873; purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow, C. St J. (b.1936) in 1984
Credit line
Belton House, The Brownlow Collection (acquired with the help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund by the National Trust in 1984)
Makers and roles
Melchior d'Hondecoeter (Utrecht 1636 - Amsterdam 1695), artist
References
Laing 1991 Alastair Laing, 'Whence this clutch of four?', Country Life, vol.CLXXXVI, 1991, pp.172-3 Prized Possessions: Dutch Paintings from National Trust Houses (exh. cat.), Holburne Museum, Bath 25 May - 16 Sep 2018; Mauritshuis, The Hague, 11 Oct 2018 - 6 Jan 2019; Petworth House, West Sussex, 26 Jan - 24 Mar 2019., pp.19-20