This vertical still life painting shows a display of dead pheasants, slabs of meat and ribs, and fruit, all arranged on a tabletop close to us. Five golden pears sit on a wooden stool in front of the table, to the left of center. More than a dozen pheasants are arranged belly up on a gold platter with pedestal foot on the table to our left. Their plucked bodies are covered with a layer of white, textured lard while the feathers on their heads and neck are left intact. Two of the three fully plucked birds stacked on a tousled white tablecloth to our right are wrapped in what looks like paper…
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Still Life with Dressed Game, Meat, and Fruit

Alexandre-François Desportes (French, 1661 - 1743)

1734

Medium
oil on canvas
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
overall: 121 x 95 cm (47 5/8 x 37 3/8 in.) ; framed: 146.05 x 118.43 x 5.72 cm (57 1/2 x 46 5/8 x 2 1/4 in.)
Culture
French
Museum
National Gallery of Art, CF
Credit line
Chester Dale Fund
Rights
Public domain (NGA Open Access, 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 National Gallery of Art