Popinjay Shooting in Brussels

A popinjay shoot was one of the big days in a Flemish town's year. A wooden bird was fixed to the top of a tall pole, the members of a shooting guild took turns firing at it, and whoever brought it down was honoured as king of the guild until the next contest. Rulers sometimes took part as well.

Here, in 1652, the Habsburg governor Archduke Leopold Wilhelm stands on a raised platform in the middle, in a hat, and the mayor of Brussels congratulates him on a shot while the guild looks on. Around them Teniers spreads a whole city's holiday, crowds, carts and horses, on a canvas almost two and a half metres wide. It was probably not the archduke's own commission. The Kunsthistorisches Museum thinks the city of Brussels gave it to him as a present. Teniers signed and dated it low on the left, beneath the cart horses.