Hare, Spoonbill, and Fish (mid-1600s): Art, History and Details

Hare, Spoonbill, and Fish (mid-1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

This striking painting of fish and game has yet to be attributed to a specific artist. Art historians have considered Dutch, Spanish, or Italian artists as possibilities, including the Dutch still-life and animal specialist Frans Snyders and the Spanish artist Alejandro de Loarte. But both have been rejected on stylistic grounds. An Italian artist is more plausible; the vaguely rendered, reddish background and the fluid handling of paint, especially in the portrayal of the fish, are characteristic of an Italian hand. The composition, which emphasizes the space between the creatures with strong highlights and deep shadows, also points to an Italian artist, possibly from a Northern Italian city such as Genoa.

Object facts

• Title: Hare, Spoonbill, and Fish
• Date: mid-1600s
• Culture: Italy, possibly Genoa
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 128.5 x 159 x 8 cm (50 9/16 x 62 5/8 x 3 1/8 in.); Unframed: 99.5 x 128.5 cm (39 3/16 x 50 9/16 in.)
• Collection: P - Italian 16th & 17th Century
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1916.1001

Collection credit

Holden Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982.
• Rubinstein-Bloch, Stella. Catalogue of a Collection of Paintings, Etc. Presented by Mrs. Liberty E. Holden to the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1917.
• G. U. "The Holden Collection." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 4, no. 2 (1917): 19-34.

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.