Willem van Aelst, 'Still Life with Partridges', 1671

Willem van Aelst was one of the most successful Dutch still-life painters of the early seventeenth century. His images are of gorgeous bouquets of flowers and opulent arrangements of the spoils of the chase. Hunting had been the exclusive preserve of the nobility. As the Dutch Republic grew in prosperity, licences to hunt were granted to members of the merchant classes. They then bought the increasingly expensive paintings that confirmed their newfound status. Aelst’s Portrait of Jochem van Aras with his Wife and Daughter (Wallace Collection, London) shows the celebration of such an event.

Aelst’s sumptuous trophy images were much in demand. Most are painted in rich, brilliant colours, such as Still Life with Fruit, Lobster and Silver Vessels (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). But here, against a dark background, the palette is muted. Dramatic light focuses on the plumage of the dead bird, the breast golden and downy, the grey underwing almost sculptural. Delicate tassels and feathers contrast with gleaming metal and cold marble. The intricate shapes of decoy whistles tease the eye, and the curiosity. A glimpse of the rich green silk of the hunting pouch and the soft suede of its belt tempt the fingers to explore. Above and to the left is the mouth of a hunting horn. This is balanced on the right by the sharp tips of a bundle of stakes. Such stakes were driven into the earth to stretch out a net now hidden behind the bird so recently captured in its mesh. Overhead, a second partridge hangs almost lost in darkness. Between its legs is the hood of the falcon that may have hunted it down.

Touches of red lift the painting from the grim to the celebratory: the velvet of the falcon’s hood, the bird’s beak and its scrawny talons, and the decoy whistle looking like the jaw of a tiny animal protruding from the edge of the table. There is life in the picture, and perhaps a warning. A fly creeps up the pinion of the outstretched wing. It may be a hint of the partridge’s fate, but also emblematic of the brevity of life.

The fragile leg of the partridge, central and arresting, makes an ‘S’ bend: a typical element of Van Aelst’s paintings. His flower pictures often feature a sinuous ‘S’ of stems and leaves, a characteristic that also appears in the Gallery’s Still Life of Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Marble Ledge by his pupil, the eminent flower painter Rachel Ruysch.

As a young man, Aelst lived in Florence painting for the Medici family, and for a short while in Rome. There, he joined a somewhat racy association of northern artists called the Schildersbent, who gave him the nickname Vogelverschrikker, or Scarecrow. He later returned to Amsterdam, where this picture was painted. It is signed with the Italian abbreviated version of his first name, ‘Guill.mo’, perhaps a fond reminder of his life in Italy.