Grande nature morte avec une dame et un perroquet

Antwerp, where this was painted, had lost the use of its river. The Dutch republic held the mouth of the Scheldt and kept sea traffic out, so the richest port in northern Europe lived on other trades, among them a picture industry that shipped to buyers across the continent.

Snyders was its specialist in plenty. The canvas runs more than two metres wide and is loaded with game, artichokes, grapes and melons, and on the young woman's hand sits a grey parrot from West Africa, the kind of imported bird a wealthy household kept to be seen with. Dresden leaves the painting undated and gives the woman herself to another hand, probably Theodoor van Thulden. Splitting a canvas between specialists was ordinary practice in the city, and Snyders did it for years with Rubens, painting the animals into his pictures.