Frans Snyders, 1579-1657

By Aliya Trovoada

Larder with a Maidservant, c.1630-40, Oil on Panel

Considered one of the most noted animal painters of the 17th century, Frans Snyders (also written ‘Snijders’) was a Flemish Baroque artist born on November 11th, 1579 in Antwerp. His paintings include still lives, animals in combat, hunting scenes, and a variety of topics facilitating his ability to capture intensely the textures of his subjects, as seen in Larder with a Maidservant (c.1630-40). Snyders was one of the first artists to concentrate on depicting animals, rather than humans, in everyday environments, making him extremely influential for future generations of artists of the natural world.

As a young man, Snyders studied under Pieter Brueghel in his studio, but it was Brueghel’s brother Jan who proved the most pronounced artistic inspiration for Snyders, especially in his virtuosic rendering of textures. After living in Italy for several months in 1608 and exploring different art styles, Snyder specialised in the depiction of animals. This allowed him to collaborate with many other painters of his time such as Rubens; it is known that they worked together on multiple occasions, including on Rubens’ Head of Medusa (c.1618), in which Snyders drew the painting’s snakes.

Snyders began working on portraits of animals, compositions of which were rich and full of detail. Snyders was expressive in his style of painting these animals with a bold colour pallet and with his capturing of minute details like light on feathers. His meticulous attention to detail allows viewers to feel as if they can almost feel the textures of the subjects, a skill which Snyders mastered.

Larder with a Maidservant (ca. 1630-40) is an enormous painting celebrating prosperity with a table filled with the bounty of a hunt and harvest. Each item is rendered to show the quality and variety of food present, from the shining shellfish to the extensive produce. Snyders’ paintings were manifestations of their patron’s social fantasies, including those of Philip III of Spain, who had several paintings about hunting, and Ghent Bishop Antonius Triest, who commissioned paintings of market scenes.

Frans Snyders’ innovative approach to animal painting was highly influential for artists of his generation and beyond. He mastered joining elements of nature and animal paintings with the rich Baroque, which gave him incredible results. His ability to explore and break away from traditional forms of painting helped him flourish and created an esteemed legacy which lives on today.

Bibliography

Harris, James C. “The Head of Medusa: Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders.” JAMA Psychiatry 71, no. 6 (June 1, 2014): 614–15. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.2735.

Meredith, Jill. “The Wedding Feast: Frans Snyders’s Larder with a Maidservant.” Gastronomica 3, no. 3 (2003): 10–12. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2003.3.3.10.

Rijks, Marlise. “A Painter, a Collector, and a Horseshoe Crab: Connoisseurs of Art and Nature in Early Modern Antwerp.” Journal of the History of Collections 31 (August 3, 2019): 343–61. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhc/fhy029.

Walter S. Gibson. “Painting and the Market in Early Modern Antwerp.” Edited by Elizabeth Alice Honig. Speculum 76, no. 1 (2001): 172–74. https://doi.org/10.2307/2903737.