# Dead Birds and Shot Bags

- By: Pieter Boel (Flemish, 1622-1674)
- Date: c. 1660
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 32.6 × 43.3 cm (12 3/4 × 17 in.); Framed: 49.5 × 59.7 × 6.4 cm (19 1/2 × 23 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
- Culture: Flanders
- Credit line: A. A. Munger Collection
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/84096)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/698365b1799fe3d884306dd14128d96d.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Arranged in sinuous poses to emphasize individual feathers and decorative patterns in the plumage, the lifeless birds in this painting demonstrate the artist’s careful attention to reproducing the natural world. Pieter Boel, who specialized in the game still lifes popularized in the Southern Netherlands by Frans Snyders, executed highly naturalistic representations of fowl and canines during his years in Antwerp. The heightened shadows in this work reflect Boel’s study of Italian painting during a stay there in the 1640s.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0