Two Spaniels and a Huntsman before a Landscape - Rafael Valls

Medium

Oil on Canvas

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-150542

Born in Leiden circa 1637, Abraham Begeyn appears not to have studied with any particular master, though by tradition it is thought that he may have been taught by Nicholas Berchem. We find his name mentioned as a member of the Guild of St. Luke in Leiden between the years 1655 and 1667. Begeyn travelled to Italy twice, in 1659 and 1667. In 1672 he was back in Amsterdam and then moved to London for two years where he completed 14 paintings for the Earl of Lauderdale at Ham House, several of which can still be seen there. Later, in 1681, he travelled to The Hague where he lived for four years. In 1683 he was elected a member of the Guild in The Hague. In 1688 Begeyn was summoned to Berlin where he rapidly came to the notice of the Grand Elector and soon became the leading Court painter. As a painter of animals, he was as important as Nicholas Berchem and Jan Asselijn, and many of his landscapes recall the work of Jan Baptist Weenix, especially in the treatment of foliage. Begeyn typically painted landscapes bathed in golden Italiante light with pillars, arches and flights of steps in the antique manner, placing in the foreground large lifelike clumps of thistles or weeds. He also talented at painting flower still lifes, hunting scenes, and sottoboscos. His paintings are usually signed. - In this view of a hunt two spaniels rest while their master cleans his gun on the grass. No partridge or other game have been collected as yet, so the viewer is left to suppose that the scene is in the early morning before the shoot has begun. The tall white flowers appear to be hemlock a notoriously poisonous plant which provides foreshadowing for what is to come. The perspective is set low to the ground so that we are on level with the dogs among the weeds and earth giving the painting a hint of the sottobosco, a sub-genre which Begeyn often explored. As the hunter has his back turned the true subject of the painting is his dogs one of which is alert to the presence of the viewer. In this way the composition bears a marked similarity to Begeyn's many pictures of billy goats inhabiting similar landscapes which the spaniels have replaced in the present picture.