OIL PAINTING: The Pantry, c.1645
A pupil of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Frans Snyders was admitted as a free master to the Guild of St Luke in 1602. He then spent time in Italy before returning to settle permanently in Antwerp in 1609. At a time when orders were pouring in, painters made use of specialised colleagues for certain parts of the works. Artists like Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens and Cornelis de Vos all called on Frans Snyders to produce the animal motifs in their paintings.
The scene o The Pantry is set in the kitchen of a vast house. A maidservant, said to be painted by Cornelis de Vos, is carrying a tray full of quails and crowned with a pheasant. Her head turned to the right, she is standing alongside a large rectangular table spilling over with victuals. The Pantry is organised on several levels around a white swan, whose body and outstretched wings occupy the centre of the scene. Next to it, a gutted roebuck is hanging by one paw from a