Pieter Boel was a very productive and successful international artist, active in Antwerp, Genoa and Paris. 

 

He made a famous series of studies of the animals from the menagerie of King Louis XIV, which especially our young deers remind of. Another painter, who added the landscape, finished our painting, probably after Boel passed away, at the age of 52.

 

 

Flemish painter

Antwerp 1622 – 1674 Paris 

 

His first name is sometimes spelt Peeter.

 

Important and prolific painter of game pieces, of flower and fruit still lifes, of live animals and of Vanitas, weaponry and fish still lifes.

In a few paintings Boel worked together with the history and portrait painter Erasmus II Quellinus (Antwerp 1607 – 1678 Antwerp).

 

Pupil of his father, the engraver Jan Boel, and of Jan Fyt (Antwerp 1611 – 1661 Antwerp). 

Jacques van de Kerckhove (Antwerp 1636/37 – 1712 Venice) was also an important pupil of Jan Fyt. 

 

Clearly Fyt, who had made long journeys in France and Italy, inspired both van de Kerckhove and Boel to go for an international career: 

 

- van de Kerckhove worked in Antwerp between 1649 and 1657, and above all in Venice from 1685 until his death in 1712.

 

- Boel was active in Genoa, one of the major harbour towns and financial centres of Italy, between 1647 and 1649. He stayed here with his uncle, Cornelis de Wael (Antwerp 1592 – 1667 Rome), who was a famous painter and art dealer. From 1650, when Boel joined the local Painters’ Guild, until 1668 he returned to his birthplace Antwerp. He finished his career in Paris, where he remained until his death in 1674 at the age of 52.

 

Some sources erroneously say that our painter was a pupil of Frans Snijders (Antwerp 1579 – 1657 Antwerp). It was Jan Fyt, Boel’s master, who did study under Snijders.

 

In Genoa Boel fell under the influence of animal painters who were active there: Italians such as Anton Maria Vassallo and Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (il Grechetto) and Flemish such as Jan Roos I and Jacques Legi (Giacomo Liegi).

 

In Paris Boel worked not only as a painter, but also as a tapestry designer under Charles le Brun (1619 – 1690) at the Manufacture des Gobelins. In 1674 Boel was named “Peintre ordinaire du Roi”, but sadly he died that very same year.

 

The landscape painter Lucas de Wael (Antwerp 1591 – 1661 Antwerp), who was a brother of Cornelis de Wael, was the godfather of Boel’s second son Balthasar-Lucas.

 

Both Boel’s sons, Jan Baptist II and Balthasar-Lucas had studied painting under their father. But his most important pupil was the animal painter

David de Coninck (Antwerp circa 1644 – after 1701/1705 Brussels) from 1659 onwards. De Coninck was also an international artist, who worked in Antwerp, Paris, above all Rome, then Vienna and Brussels.

 

 

In 2007 Dr. Fred Meijer (then still active at the RKD in The Hague), made the attribution to Pieter Boel. According to him the animals were probably conceived as a group of studies, while the landscape background appears to be an addition by a different, somewhat later hand.

 

Our animals do indeed remind of the famous studies that Boel made of the very diverse creatures from the menagerie of King Louis XIV. Our painting might therefore date from the very last years of his life, when he was active in Paris (1668 – 1674).

 

Guinea pigs are exotic animals, introduced in Europe during the 16th century. Following the conquest of the Inca empire Spanish traders brought them here from the South American Andes.

 

 

Because our painter has very well studied the nervous vigilance of the young deers.