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Still Life with a Rabbit

Jan van Kessel

Basic information

ID: Ж-781
Author: Jan van Kessel
Name: Still Life with a Rabbit
Date of creation: 1652
Technique: oil painting
Material: canvas oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 108 x 98.5

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: still life animal painting
Plot: Still life
Provenance: the Lubomirski collection
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Jan van Kessel
Artist's lifetime: c.1620 – c.1661
Country: Netherlands, Flanders
Biography: The artist was born in Antwerp and may have been a student of Simon de Vos when he was 14–15 years old. He moved to Amsterdam in 1649, shortly after joining the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke (1645), where he created a significant part of his works. For over three centuries, the master's works were attributed to his namesake, a more famous Flemish painter, Jan van Kessel (1626–1679), the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Velvet. In the early 2000s, newly discovered archival materials, particularly interpreted entries in the books of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, brought back the name of the forgotten artist and highlighted his creative works, including approximately 30 still lifes dated 1650–1661.

Object description

In the 17th century, in the background of social and political cataclysms, wars, and epidemics, the theme of the four primordial elements of the world, which, when united, create harmony, became one of the most prevalent in artistic culture and philosophical debates in Europe. The primary elements of the universe – air, fire, earth, and water – were depicted in fine art not only visually but also through symbols and attributes. "Still Life with a Rabbit" by Jan van Kessel (ca. 1620 – ca. 1661) from the collection of Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery is an example of such a painting. The painting from the Gallery's collection depicts a life-size hare, a bunch of asparagus, a sprawling cabbage rosette, and various crops with butterflies flying over them in a general silver tonality. The image appears from above as if plucked from the flow of life. The painting is an excellent example of a typical 17th-century "rhetorical receptive model" based on symbolism, cultural codes, and meaningful subtexts. The knowledgeable viewer of the Baroque era perceived vegetables as a symbol of the earthly elements, butterflies as air, and hares as symbols of fertility and the infinity of the flow of life. The era is distinguished by "consecutive double symbolisation" and the development of "associative symbolic chains". As a result, the four primary elements acquired a valuable meaning: the earth was associated with peace, strength, and dignity; the air with soul, spirit, inspiration, and freedom; and their unity – with the harmony of existence. A work similar to the one in Lviv, dated 1655, with the same compositional elements but depicting a rabbit as a trophy, is housed in the Duke Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Still Life with a Rabbit

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