Birds In A Lakeside Landscape. Jakab Bogdány (1660–1724) & Workshop

Oil on panel

Presented in a superb early 17th-century Italian frame (known as a “Cassetta”) with its original hook—a rare model!

Dimensions with frame: 68 x 51 cm. The panel: 50 x 32 cm.

This painting depicts, with rare grace, an ornithological scene in which farmyard birds and ornamental species mingle in a light-drenched lakeside landscape. In the center, a male peacock spreads his tail with green and blue iridescence, perched on a carved architectural fragment; around him are a red hen leaning toward the ground, a resting mallard, two domestic geese—one white, the other mottled with brown and white—a shoveler in flight across the sky, two pigeons perched at the entrance to the dovecote, and on the right, a duck (a shelduck?) perched on a rock in front of the reeds. The entire scene is bathed in a peaceful atmosphere where the water and sky blend into golden and blue tones, typical of Bogdány’s light, satiny palette. A Hungarian painter active in London in the late 17th century, he was one of the masters of portraiture depicting exotic and domestic birds, combining naturalistic precision with a decorative sensibility. The balanced and luminous composition reflects his taste for refined harmonies and the delicate textures of the birds’ plumage.

This work embodies the 18th-century fascination with rare birds and ornamental gardens, where scientific rigor blends with the poetry of the gaze.

Biography:

Jakab Bogdány (1660–1724) was a Hungarian painter who specialized in still lifes and animal paintings. His pupil and son-in-law was the painter Tóbiás Stranover, a native of Sibiu.

Career

He studied fine arts in Vienna, settled in Amsterdam in 1684, and then moved to London. In the Netherlands, he was influenced by the art of Willem van Aelst, Abraham van Beijeren, Melchior d’Hondecoeter, and others. In England, he studied the style of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer’s floral paintings as well as the animal paintings of Francis Barlow and Marmaduke Cradock, while developing a personal style characterized by vivid colors and static perspective. He enjoyed great success thanks to his colorful still lifes depicting flowers and birds.

The Budapest Museum of Fine Arts holds in its collection a nearly identical composition by the same artist (oil on canvas), featuring the same species in a very similar arrangement but on a larger scale. This museum version, although valuable for understanding Bogdány’s work, remains less accomplished: the rendering of the plumage is more sketchy, the lighting less subtle, and some birds show a more hasty drawing. Does the much smaller size of our painting allow for greater quality in the details?

Provenance: private European collection

In excellent condition; stable paint layer; uniform varnish; panel without cracks.

Sold with a certificate of authenticity