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Still Life with Dead Birds

Creator

Flemish Artist · 1590–1642

Little is known about Christoffel van den Berghe's life. His pictures generally bear the monogram *CVB*, and his identity was unknown until the 1950s. He seems to have led a fairly isolated existence in Middelburg, and only four of his flower paintings have been identified. Van den Berghe may have been a pupil of flower painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. In addition to flower pieces, he paint

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Date: 1624
Medium: Oil on canvas
Culture: Flemish
Department: Paintings
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: 290f112e-c54d-4eb8-a1a4-60df4a26989d

From the Getty Museum record

In this hunting trophy painting, Christoffel van den Berghe saw the dead birds as opportunities to inventively orchestrate a variety of textures, patterns, and shapes. He not only showcased the birds' colorful feathers, but he complemented them with his entire still-life repertoire: fruit, flowers, and serving pieces. The genre of "game pieces" generally dates from the 1640s; this is one of the earliest in the history of Dutch art. Few Dutch artists painted such works, perhaps because the market was small. Hunting and shooting were not practiced on a large scale in the northern Netherlands, and these paintings were not commissioned.

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