Two Young Lions Pursuing a Roebuck

For a long time this canvas was explained as a fable. Two young lions chase a roebuck, and the old reading had one of them miss its prey out of sheer eagerness for the hunt, a lesson about blind jealousy. The Alte Pinakothek itself says there is no clear sign of such a meaning and treats the picture as a showpiece of animals staged for effect. Snyders painted it in Antwerp around 1620 to 1625. The museum also owns his lioness bringing down a wild boar, and the two canvases share almost exactly the same size, about 1.6 by 2.4 metres, the same date and the same origin in the collection of the Bavarian electors.