Lot 2052 Dα

The partridge is shown in a stone niche, hanging upside down by a thread - a prey animal, and yet Abraham Mignon imbues it with beauty and elegance. The wings are fanned out rhythmically on one side, with the white of the feathers becoming more radiant and brighter towards the rump, the bird's head, shining in light ochre, rests gently on a green velvet hunting bag. Other birds are depicted on the table: a bullfinch, a goldfinch, a partridge, a pheasant and blue tits. In addition to the hunting bag, utensils such as the horn or the corkscrew-shaped decoy complete the arrangement. Mignon proves to be a master of his craft here, skilfully directing the viewer's gaze from top to bottom, thereby enhancing the richness of the colours and forms and, moreover, making the manifold textures of the plumage and hunting utensils palpable. The refinement of this still life in its colouring, composition and forms corresponds to the intended aristocratic or patrician viewer, since hunting was a privilege reserved for the higher classes.
The art historiographer Arnold Houbraken had already emphasised the importance of the German Abraham Mignon for Dutch painting of the Golden Age in the early 18th century. Mignon came from a Huguenot family in Frankfurt, a city that had developed its own tradition of still life painting with Georg Flegel and Jakob Marrell. Mignon studied with Marrell and moved with him to Utrecht, a step that was to be decisive for his artistic career. It was in Utrecht that he met Jan Davidsz. de Heem, who influenced him artistically and whose workshop he was later to take over. Abraham Mignon is primarily known for his flower, fruit and sous-bois still lifes (cf. Lempertz Auction 1209, Cologne, 19.11.2022, lot Lot 1563). The present hunting still life, long kept in a private collection in southern Germany, is one of just around 15 works of this genre in Mignon's oeuvre. If we look at their development, we see an increasing mastery of the arrangement of animals and hunting utensils, an increasing clarity and elegance in the composition, which is characteristic of the present still life. This becomes evident when one compares, for example, the depiction of the partridge here with the depiction of cockerels in earlier works, whose silhouettes are more restless and whose plumage more colourful.


Abraham Mignon learned the art of hunting still lifes from Willem van der Aelst, among others, who ran a successful workshop in Amsterdam following stays in Italy and France (fig. 1). Abraham Mignon later expanded the arrangement of this still life once again into a larger composition, keeping the field fowl in the centre of the picture, but adding a richer repertoire of animals and hunting utensils, and it is no coincidence that this work entered a princely collection (Collection of the Dukes of Anhalt, Dessau-Wörlitz Foundation, Mosigkau Castle, inv. no. 11).