Lot 531 Dα

Max Slevogt has created a classic little hunting piece with the present painting. With broad brushstrokes he has captured the image of two slain Eurasian jays, better known simply as jays, featuring the characteristic shape of their heads and beaks, their red-brown feathers and the striking, blue-and-black striped feathers of their wings. The birds' bodies seem to lie on a beige-coloured sandstone parapet, where they are surrounded and thus set off by dark, leafy and flowering vines, which are not more specifically defined. Max Slevogt was himself an enthusiastic hunter, and the theme appears repeatedly in his work. In 1907 he created a self-portrait in hunting clothes and with a gun (Coll. Georg Schäfer, on permanent loan to the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg); according to Imiela, the 1901 “Erlegter Marder im Grünen” (Slain marten in the countryside) or the 1906 “Toter Fuchs” (Slain fox) can also be mentioned as examples of hunting still lifes from this period (Imiela, n. 42, p. 384). Another passionate hunter, Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, was the prominent original owner of “Zwei Nusshäher”.