Study of a black-crowned night heron
Trained probably by Jan Fyt, and perhaps also by Frans Snyders, the Antwerp-born Pieter Boel, "a painter highly esteemed for his work in animals", settled in Paris around 1658 where he soon began working under the direction of Charles Le Brun. Heir to the great Flemish animal painters, Boel paved the way for those of the French school of the 18th century: Desportes, Oudry, Bachelier, Chardin...
The artist owes this brilliant posterity in part to Le Brun. In 1668, the director of the Royal Manufacture of Gobelins entrusted him with the execution of the cartoons of the set of animals intended to appear in the foreground of the hanging of the Months or Royal Houses. Inaugurating a practice that many animal artists after him would appreciate, Boel drew his inspiration from the animals gathered in Louis XIV's menagerie at Versailles. He was as curious about exotic species as he was about native specimens. Thus, considering the hundred or so different species that the artist was able to immortalize for his cartoons, we note that a quarter of them fall into the category of European game. Eighty-one studies by him are known today, nine of which are on deposit at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature.
