About This Artwork

Juan Sánchez Cotán
Spanish, 1560–1627

Still Life with Game Fowl, 1600/03

Oil on canvas
26 11/16 x 34 15/16 in. (67.8 x 88.7 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leigh B. Block, 1955.1203

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Los Angeles, UCLA Art Galleries, Dickson Art Center, Spanish Masters, January 25–March 6, 1960; traveled to Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, March 25–May 1, 1960, cat. 8.

Caracas, Museo de Bellas Artes de Caracas, Grandes Maestros de los Siglos XV, XVI, XVII y XVIII, November 5–December 17, 1967, cat. 6.

Forth Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age 1600–1650, catalogue by William Jordan, May 11–August 4, 1985; traveled to Toledo Museum of Art, September 8–November 3, 1985, cat. 4.

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, La Imitación de la Naturaleza: Los Bodegones de Sánchez Cotán, November 17, 1992–January 17, 1993, cat. 2.

Chicago, Art Institute, Chicago’s Dream, A World’s Treasure: The Art Institute of Chicago 1893–1993, November 1–January 9, 1994, no cat.

London, The National Gallery, Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, catalogue by William Jordan and Peter Cherry, February 22–May 21, 1995, cat. 2.

Boston, MA, Museum of Fine Arts, El Greco to Velázquez, April 20, 2008-July 27, 2008, cat. 52, traveled to Durham, NC, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, August 21, 2008-November 9, 2008, pp. 58-59, pp. 112-114, p. 119, p. 252, p. 268, p. 275.

Publication History

August L. Mayer, Geschichte der spanischen Malerei, Leipzig, 1922, p. 361.

Die Weltkunst 2, no. 49 (December 3, 1933), p. 5.

August L. Mayer, Historia de la pintura española, Madrid, 1942, p. 384.

“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums: July-September, 1955,” The Art Quarterly 19 (1956), p. 73, 76 (ill.).

The Art Institute of Chicago Quarterly 50 (1956), p. 37 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), p. 409.

Pontus Grate, Spanska Mästare: En Konstbok från Nationalmuseum (Stockholm, 1960), p. 115, ill.

Ramón Torres Martín, Zurbarán: El Pintor Gótico del Siglo XVII (Seville, 1963), p. LXXX, fig. 28.

William Jordan, “Juan van der Hamen y León: A Madrilenian Still-Life Painter,” Marsyas 12 (1964–1965), p. 63, fig. 18.

Ingvar Bergström, Maestros españoles de bodegones y floreros del siglosXVII (Madrid, 1970), pp. 20-21.

John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (New York, 1970), p. 256 (ill.).

Ramón Torres Martin, La Naturaleza Muerta en la Pintura Española (Barcelona, 1971), p. 48, fig. 8.

Diego Angulo Iñiguez and Alfonso E. Perez Sanchez, Historia de la pintura española: Escuela toledana de la primera mitad del siglo XVII (Madrid, 1972), p. 97, no. 204, pl. 72.

José Gudiol Ricart, “Nature mortes de Sánchez Cotán (1561–1627),” Pantheon 35 (1977), pp. 311–18, fig. 1.

Ingvar Bergström et al., Stilleben (Zurich, 1979), p. 212 (ill.).

Gerhard Langemeyer and Hans Albert Peters, eds., Stilleben in Europa, exh. cat. Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst-und Kulturgeschichte Münster and Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 1979, p. 386.

Pintura espagñola de bodegones y floreros de 1600 a Goya, exhib. cat. (Museo del Prado, Madrid, 1983-84), pp. 28-29.

Betty Dietz Krebs, “Mystery Part of Toledo Art Museum Exhibit,” Dayton Daily News (September 1, 1985), p. 2–D (ill.).

Fritz Koreny, Albrecht Dürer und die Tier- und Planzenstudien der Renaissance, exh. cat., Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, 1985, p. 43, fig. 6.

Nina Ayala Mallory, “Museum News: Spanish Still-Life in the Golden Age, 1600-1650,” Art Journal 45 (1985), p. 354.

Alfonso E. Pérez Sánchez, La nature morte espagnole du XVIIe siècle à Goya, Fribourg, 1987, p. 21, fig. 6.

James N. Wood and Katherine C. Lee, Master Painting in the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1988), p. 25 (ill.).

William B. Jordan, “A Newly Discovered Still Life by Juan Sánchez Cotán,” Burlington Magazine 132 (1990), pp. 96–99, fig. 19.

Peter Cherry, “Madrid. Sánchez Cotán at the Prado,” Burlington Magazine 135 (1993), pp. 164-66, fig. 118.

Emilio Orozco Díaz, El Pintor Fray Juan Sánchez Cotán (Granada 1993), pp. 368-9, ill. p. 193.

John W. Smith, “The Nervous Profession: Daniel Catton Rich and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1927-1958,” The Art Institute of Chicago: Museum Studies 19, no. 1 (1993), p. 69, fig. 15.

Bodo Vischer, "'La transformacíon den dios': zu den Stilleben von Juan Sánchez Cotán, 1560-1627," Zeitchrift für Ästhetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 38 (1993), p. 280, pl. 2.

Evaristo Baschenis e la natura morta in Europa, exh. cat., Galleria d’arte moderna e contemporanea, Bergamo, 1996, p. 23, fig. 9.

Peter Cherry, “The Hungry Eye: the Still Lifes of Juan Sánchez Cotán,” Konsthistorisk Tidskrift 65 (1996), pp. 82–83, 85, 90, 94, fig. 6.

Claus Grimm, Natures Mortes: Italiennes, espagnoles et françaises aux XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1996), p. 93, fig. 37.

William B. Jordan, An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, exh. cat., Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., (London, 1997), pp. 30–34, under cat. 1.

William B. Jordan, “Sánchez Cotán, Juan” in Dictionary of Art, vol. 27 (New York, 1996), p. 706.

Peter Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza: El Bodegón Español en el Siglo de Oro (Aranjuez, 1999), pp. 32–34, pl. 8.

Georges Herzog, Albrecht Kauw (1616-1681): Der Berner Maler aus Strassburg (Bern 1999), pp. 83-4, fig. 43.

Felix Scheffler, Das spanische Stilleben des 17. Jahrhunderts: Theorie, Genese und Entfaltung einer neuen Bildgattung (Frankfurt, 2000), p. 249, fig. 132.

Old Master Pictures, auction cat., Christie’s, London, December 8, 2004, under lot 94, pp. 174–5, fig. 3.

Ownership History

Probably in the artist’s possession, Toledo, before he retired to Carthusian monastery, in August 1603 [inventory 1603, no. V, “Un lienzo de fontas adonde está el anade y otros tres pájaros ques de Diego de Valdivieso”; Jordan in Madrid 1992, pp. 41–43]; probably Diego de Valdivieso, Toledo, 1603 [see Jordan 1992, cited above]. August L. Mayer, Munich, by 1922; sold, Munich, Hugo Helbing, November 24–25, 1933, lot 79, pl. 4, as Sánchez Cotán, Küchenstilleben for 380 Marks [the price based on Die Weltkunst 1933; that the picture belonged to Mayer can be deduced from the provenance of no. 74 in this sale, now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; see Mayer 1922]. Private collection, Germany [according to 1955 receipt from Frederick Mont, in curatorial file]. Owned jointly by Frederick Mont and Newhouse Galleries, New York, by 1955 [1955 receipt citied above and shipping invoice, in curatorial file]; sold to the Art Institute, 1955.