Game Hare and Pheasant - Oil on canvas - (ca. 1800) atrributed to Benjamin Blake For Sale

This artwork is a traditional hunting still life (nature morte de chasse), a genre that became immensely popular in 17th- and 18th-century European art, particularly in Dutch, Flemish, and French painting traditions.It depicts a hare suspendedupside down by its hind legs from a cord, resting against a stone ledge. Surrounding the hare are some harvestedgame birds, including a brightly coloredring-necked pheasant and a woodcock (or snipe) with its long, slender bill.The composition uses dramatic light-and-dark contrast (chiaroscuro),casting a strong light source on the pale underside and body of thehare while letting the background recede into deep shadow.
This type of trophy/hunting still lifepopularizedby Northern European masters (such as Jan Weenix, Frans Snyders, or JanFyt) and later French painters (like Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin and Alexandre-François Desportes), these works were often commissioned by aristocratic landowners or wealthy merchants to celebrate field sports, bounty, and prestige.Beyond displaying game, dead game still lifes carried subtle memento mori or vanitas connotations—reminders of the transience of life, mortality, and the fleeting nature of physical earthly riches.
This piece is unsigned but has been attributed to Benjamin Blake.
English School, circa 1800.
Oil on canvas.
Size: approx. 24 x 20 inchesPurchased from a London antiques dealer several years ago.
Condition is commensurate with age - various superficial marks, scratches and repairs and signs of professional restoration - all part of its unique charm and character.Benjamin Blake (1757-1830) was an English painter active in London during the late Georgian period, renowned specifically for his small, intimate still-life compositions of dead game (hares, pheasants, snipe, and fish) resting in larders or hung against dark backgrounds.
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Thanks for looking.