Still Life with Game and Fowl

This canvas came to the Mauritshuis in 1905 as a gift from Leo Nardus, a Dutch art dealer then living at Arnouville, just outside Paris. Born in Utrecht in 1868, Nardus also fenced for the Netherlands at the Olympic Games. His name is best remembered today for the paintings he sold to the Philadelphia collector Peter Widener, 93 of them over the 1890s and 1900s, most of which later proved to be fakes or of little worth.

The still life he gave to The Hague is catalogued by the museum as the work of Abraham van Beijeren, without a date. In the Dutch Republic hunting was largely a privilege of the landed nobility, and pictures of game carried some of that social standing.

It belongs to the Mauritshuis and hangs in the Gallery Prince Willem V in The Hague.