albert cuyp cock and hens 1651
Some years ago the inhabitants of the old wooden henhouse in my backyard were all killed by a fox. Last week I repaired the henhouse to make it fox proof and I bought some Welsumer hens and a cock. The new inhabitants bring life on the farm. Despite the change of environment and the cold weather the hens are bravely producing nice brown eggs and the large colorful cock is greeting us loudly when we visit his territory.
The Dutch painter Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) also kept chickens but he lived in the center of Amsterdam near the Prinsengracht. He got into an argument with neighbors about the chickens and was forced to move to another place. As I live in the countryside it is very unlikely that the same will happen to me. Metsu made many drawings of his chickens and his genre paintings often show poultry as a part of the scene. The beautiful painting he made of a dead cock ( upper left) shows that he must have made many studies of his chickens. The Dutch painter Melchior de Hondecoeter (1636-1695) was specialized in birds. Rumor goes that he trained a cock to pose as a model for him . In his personal life he was not as dominant as the cocks he painted. His wife was a Xantippe and her sisters also belonged to the household. So most of the time he spent outside in the tavern or in his garden with the birds. Albert Cuyp (1620-1691) was a typical Dutch landscape painter but he occasionally used poultry as a subject for his paintings.
One of the best works of Jan Steen (1626-1679) is called "the poultry yard". Actually it is a portrait of a young girl but the girl Jacoba Maria van Wassenaer is situated in the poultry yard of a castle. The painting shows that Jan Steen was an excellent bird painter. Special on this painting is the turkey, at that time (1660) still a curiosity from America. In general the cocks and hens on the 17th century paintings are exotic fowl races. At that time the Dutch sailed all over the world and imported many exotic animals and plants. Exotic birds were very popular among the wealthy upperclass. They gave status and prestige to the owners so there definitely was a market for Dutch bird painters.