Adriaen (Adrien) VAN DER KABEL, still life with game.

VAN der KABEL, Adriaen
Still Life with Bustard, Hare, Partridge and Hunting Horn
Oil on canvas, between 1655 and 1659
Signed lower right: Adrianus van der Cabel fecit... 119 x 140 cm
Price : 45 000 €

The work depicts a set of freshly caught game: a bittern with outstretched wings, a hare, several partridges and a few smaller birds.
In the background we can see a dog, barely visible that adds a narrative touch and recalls the faithful assistance of canines when hunting with hounds.
The presence, on the left, of a hunting horn and a basket reinforce the hunting theme of the work. These elements evoke not only the activity of hunting itself, but also the traditions and social statuses associated with this practice.
Angled lighting from a single source enhances the texture of feathers, hair, and reflective surfaces. This chiaroscuro, inspired by the Baroque movement and Caravaggism, is used here to magnify the details and focus the attention on the game.
This Still Life with Bittern, Hare, Partridge and Hunting Horn
is part of a pair. The second composition, entitled Still Life with Fruit and Birds , is also in the Tomaselli Collection.
Both paintings come from the cabinet of works of art and natural history formed by Antoine-Nicolas Gavinet, a member of the Academy of Lyon, who died on March 5, 1795, and before that to the Peysson de Bacot family, a consular family of Lyon.
Adriaen Van der Kabel was born in 1631, in Ryswyk, in Holland, a small village surrounded by pastures half a league from The Hague. His parents were Cornelis-Jansz and Maritge Van der Kabel (née Philips).
He began his artistic training with the Dutch painter Jan van Goyen between 1645 and 1648. At that time, he was inspired by the art of Aelbrecht Cuyp and Jacob van Ruisdael.
From the mid-1650s, a new Mediterranean inspiration nuanced his landscapes with warmer colours, and, in 1655, he undertook a journey that took him to Italy. He stopped in Lyon, where he stayed for the first time during the years 1655 to 1658, when he is said to have painted our pair of paintings.
Arriving in Rome in 1659, he joined the community of Nordic artists, the Bentvueghels. He then became interested in artists such as Gaspard Dughet, Pier Francesco Mola, Salvator Rosa and G.B. Castiglione.
Arrested on 20 August 1665 for illegally carrying the sword, Van der Kabel told the Roman police that he had been living in Rome for about five years and was working as a painter.
He seems to be continuing the journey to Sicily, as suggested by an album of travel drawings containing some plates of Sicilian buildings and monuments.
He left Rome in 1666 and passed through Aix en Provence, Toulouse and Avignon before settling permanently in Lyon. There he quickly acquired a reputation that earned him the recognition of his peers (he was one of the two Master Guards of the painters' guild) and important commissions for the decoration of private mansions. He collaborated with his brother Engel, also a painter in Lyon, specializing in flower painting.
In the same city, in 1669, he married Suzanne Bourgeois, with whom he had two daughters, Priscille (*1670) and Marie (*1671), who was to be the goddaughter of the wife of the painter Thomas Blanchet, Marie Delacoche.
The painter had many painted works in his collection, including those by Francisque, G.B. Castiglione, and Sébastien Bourdon.
He also produced portraits that are known to us: (Self-portrait, 1693 engraved by A. Bouchet, and Portrait of Jean Estival, Lyon, MBA); the portrait of Jean Chabert (merchant perfumer and owner of the shop "Au Jardin de Provence" on the pl. des Terreaux in Lyon) is known from an engraving dated 1679.
Adrian Van der Kabel died in Lyon on 15 January 1705. His son, the future painter Marc-Antoine van der Kabel, took over from his father in 1705.