Concert of Birds
Frans Snyders (Antwerp 1579 - Antwerp 1657)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1600 - 1657
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
1645 x 2340 mm
Place of origin
Antwerp
Order this imageCollection
Petworth House and Park, West Sussex
NT 486196
Caption
This and the other similar picture at Petworth were bought by the 2nd Earl of Egremont, in 1756 and 1759. Comparable pictures are in The Hermitage, St Petersburg and the Prado, Madrid. The elaborate and unusual frame was probably made for the 2nd Earl in c.1760–3 by Samuel Norman for the Dining Room at Egremont House, Piccadilly, where the painting was listed in 1764 It has been suggested that both pictures might be by Francis Barlow (1626-1702), however, they do appear to be entirely typical of Snyder’s style and subject-matter. In the 1856 catalogue these paintings went under the name of Hondecoeter. Sums of £63 and £26.9s had been paid in 1756 and 1759 for the two paintings, and the disparity is puzzling. Touchingly, seven months before the purchase of a Concert of Birds, the 2nd Earl’s accounts include a payment of three guineas “for Lord Cockermouth’s singing birds” – real things, for his five-year-old son.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Concert of Birds by Frans Snyders (Antwerp 1579 - Antwerp 1657). Peacocks, cranes, fowls, ducks and a swan in the foreground, with at right, an owl on a branch holding a music book above a host of smaller birds .
Provenance
Bought by the 2nd Earl in 1759, thence by descent, until the death in 1952 of the 3rd Lord Leconfield, who had given Petworth to the National Trust in 1947, and whose nephew and heir, John Wyndham, 6th Lord Leconfield and 1st Lord Egremont (1920-72) arranged for the acceptance of the major portion of the collections at Petworth in lieu of death duties (the first ever such arrangement) in 1956 by HMTreasury.
Credit line
Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (acquired in lieu of tax by HM Treasury in 1957 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust)
Makers and roles
Frans Snyders (Antwerp 1579 - Antwerp 1657), artist