Kitchen scene with game and vegetables, with a serving boy holding a bunch of grapes

Pictures of markets and kitchens were nothing new in Antwerp when Snyders painted this one, sometime between 1615 and 1620. Two generations earlier Pieter Aertsen and his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer had filled such canvases with heaps of produce, dozens of things set out one by one, often with a small biblical scene tucked away behind. Snyders kept the subject and changed the way it was told. The Alte Pinakothek points out how few things he shows here, and how much room each one is given. A roebuck, the head of a wild boar and a lobster carry the whole composition, the makings of an elaborate meal in a great house. A servant appears with them, and a hunting dog has its nose down, sniffing. The dog wears a collar, which marks it as belonging to the lord of the household.