Still Life of Dead Birds

There were not many hunters in the northern Netherlands when Jan Vonck was painting in the 1600s. Yet he focused almost exclusively on hunting trophy pictures like this one. The birds rest on a rustic table, the hard wood supporting their soft, feathered bodies. Vonck painted the birds with such care and detail that they can be identified: the leftmost bird with yellow on its wing is a goldfinch, the small red-breasted bird is a bullfinch, and the large bird tied up by its leg is a partridge. The dark, pale-speckled bird with the golden beak in the shadows beside the partridge may be a starling. We wish to thank Dan Davison for suggesting the identification of this bird.