Nature morte aux paons

Around 1639 Rembrandt painted two dead peacocks hung by a window, a basket of fruit beside them and a small girl leaning in to look. He rarely painted still lifes at all, and this is one of a mere handful. Peacock was a rich household's food, and once killed the birds were hung up to bleed, which is the moment shown here, down to the dark pool on the stone ledge. The year fits the man. In 1639 Rembrandt was near the height of his Amsterdam success, the year he bought the grand house on the Jodenbreestraat, now the Rembrandt House Museum, whose price would help bankrupt him two decades later. What clearly held him here was not the meal but the feathers, the blues and greens and ochres he spread across the whole lower half of the picture.