A Rooster and Turkey Fighting, by Melchior de Hondecoeter, c. 1680
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A Rooster and Turkey Fighting

Melchior de Hondecoeter (Dutch, 1636–1695)

c. 1680

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Framed: 164.5 x 193 x 10 cm (64 3/4 x 76 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 137.2 x 166.4 cm (54 x 65 1/2 in.)
Culture
Netherlands
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
John L. Severance Fund
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

One of the most fashionable artists of his time, Hondecoeter specialized in paintings of domestic and exotic birds, and other animals. Here the composition is enlivened by the swirl and excitement of the fighting rooster and turkey, set in a garden with classical architecture. A large picture like this must have been placed high over a fireplace in a rich Amsterdam house.