Alexandre-Francois Desportes

Exhibited by Rafael Valls Limited

Material Oil on canvas

Dimensions 98 x 131 cm

Place of Creation France

Price Price available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

Two magnificent fighting cockerels leap and snap at each other, their plumage a sinuous cascade of flashing red, white, and gold. One lunges at the other for a coup de grâce, talons raking, beak plucking at his enemy's comb. A pheasant and two hens watch on with casual interest in their farmyard, a stone wall framing the scene on the left and the outskirts of an orchard on the right.

Desportes' fighting birds derive from a Frans Snyders composition dated 1625 in a private collection in Vienna (see Robels in lit., no. 205). A preparatory drawing for the animal group is also in the British Museum, London (inv. no. 00.9-40). In our picture Desportes has retained Snyders' cockerels, but has swapped a watching hen for a pheasant.

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Provenance

William Morehead, Esq. of Herbertshire Castle (? - 1834);
His estate sale; C.B. Tait, Edinburgh, 23 Jan. 1835, lot 53.
Sale of Chaplin; Edward Foster, London, 15 April 1835, lot 73a (sold to Smart for 2 - 12 pounds)
Mrs VAR Dance, Moreton House, Moreton Morrell, Warwickshire;
Her sale, Heathcote Ball & Co. Locke & England, Leicester, 8 Dec. 1977, lot 377.

Literature

H. Robels, Frans Snyders: Stilleben- und Tiermaler 1579-1657, Munich, 1989, p. 313, no. 205b.
P. Jacky, François Desportes (1661-1743), PhD dissertation, Paris, 1999, IV, pp. 639-40, no. P542.
G. de Lastic and P. Jacky, Desportes Catalog Raisonné, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 2010, II, p. 139, no. P542.