Jan Baptist Boel II, Back from the Hunt

by Atelier Liesjes

In a dark, rocky shelter stand two horses: on the left, a brown horse with a red saddlecloth across its back; behind it, a grey-and-white horse. Two hunters have returned from the hunt. A young man in a green coat with a white lace ruff is holding up a dead hare by its hind legs. Next to him sits a man in a red hunting jacket with a long curly wig, lace and gloves; his hat rests on his knee. Around them stand and lie some eight dogs with white coats and black and brown markings; one of them lies stretched out on the ground, another looks up. To the left, a distant landscape with an illuminated building glimmers amongst the rocks. Boel paints the animals with attention to their coats, ears and muzzles; each dog has its own posture and its own expression. The light comes from the left and falls on the noses, the hands and the dead hare, whilst the rest of the group remains in shadow. The colour palette is warm and dark: umber, olive green, rust brown, carmine red and ivory white. The seated hunter’s red coat is the only bright accent in the otherwise dark composition. The style is Baroque, with a hunting scene that is more of a portrait than a narrative: the hunters look directly at the viewer, and the prey is a showpiece. Jan Baptist Boel II belonged to the Antwerp Boel family, which produced hunting scenes, animal paintings and still lifes for generations. He worked in the second half of the seventeenth century in the tradition of Flemish animal and hunting painting, in which the animal is just as important as the hunter. Such hunting scenes hung in the rooms of the nobility and wealthy burghers, where they were viewed and discussed. A warm, dark work for a hunting room or a classical interior with plenty of wood.