DIRCK WIJNTRACK | POULTRY YARD WITH TWO COCKS FIGHTING

With J. Bier, Haarlem, 1940;

Art market, Munich, before 1960;

Anonymous sale, Cologne, Lempertz, 28 April 1965, lot 169;

Schmitz collection, Cologne;

Anonymous sale, Cologne, Van Ham, 19 October 1979, lot 1298, when acquired.

Rotterdam, Kunsthal, At Home in the Golden Age, 9 February – 18 May 2008, no. 10 (as Jan Wijnants and Dirck Wijntrack).

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1979, vol. III, reproduced pl. 1535;

K. Eisele, Jan Wijnants (1631/32-1684). Ein Niederländischer Maler der Ideallandschaft im Goldenen Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 2000, p. 91, reproduced fig. V2;

H.-J. Raupp (ed.), Niederländische Malerei des. 17. Jahrhunderts der SØR Rusche-Sammlung, vol. 5, Stilleben und Tierstücke, Münster/Hamburg/London 2004, pp. 264–67, cat. no. 60, reproduced in colour (as Jan Wijnants and Dirck Wijntrack);

W. Pijbes, M. Aarts, M. J. Bok et al., At Home in the Golden Age, exh. cat., Zwolle 2008, p. 40, cat. no. 10, reproduced in colour (as Jan Wijnants and Dirck Wijntrack).

Wijntrack is noted for his paintings of wildfowl - a sub-genre for which there was clearly market demand, and in which Wijntrack chose to specialise. While some of the chickens on the right appear somewhat oblivious, a drama is about to take place on the left, as the two cocks square up to each other.

Wijntrack collaborated frequently with landscape artists, such as Jan Wijnants, with whom he worked in the 1650s, producing paintings signed by both painters. The present painting probably dates from this period.