A Rooster and Turkey Fighting (c. 1680): Art, History and Details

A Rooster and Turkey Fighting (c. 1680) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Melchior de Hondecoeter (Dutch, 1636–1695).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

One of the most fashionable artists of his time, Hondecoeter specialized in paintings of domestic and exotic birds, and other animals. Here the composition is enlivened by the swirl and excitement of the fighting rooster and turkey, set in a garden with classical architecture. A large picture like this must have been placed high over a fireplace in a rich Amsterdam house.

Object facts

• Title: A Rooster and Turkey Fighting
• Date: c. 1680
• Creator attribution: Melchior de Hondecoeter (Dutch, 1636–1695)
• Culture: Netherlands
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 164.5 x 193 x 10 cm (64 3/4 x 76 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 137.2 x 166.4 cm (54 x 65 1/2 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Dutch
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1986.59

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1986.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74, no. 2 (February 1987): 38–79.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.