Still Life with Dead Game, Fruits, and Vegetables in a Market

The overflowing abundance of this Flemish market stall is enlivened by fighting roosters, an aggressive cat, and a pickpocket. The painting is an important early example of Frans Snyder’s dynamic Baroque combination of figures and still-life elements. He was probably inspired by the style of Peter Paul Rubens, who excelled at mythological and religious painting. Snyders often contributed animals or fruit to Ruben’s work, and he became the leading Flemish exponent of monumental still-life painting, a genre much sought after by aristocratic collectors. (Source: Art Institute of Chicago)