Jan Fyt, one of the leading Antwerp still life painters of the seventeenth century, was the son of a wealthy merchant. He began his training in the studio of Frans Snyders (1579-1657). By 1629, Fyt is first registered in Antwerp’s guild of Saint Luke as an independent master although he continued to work in Snyders’ studio until 1631. At that point Fyt made a series of trips that took him first to Paris, from 1633 to 1634, followed by an Italian sojourn. In Rome he joined the Bentvueghels, a society of Dutch and Flemish painters, where he was nicknamed Goudvink (Goldfinch). According to the art historian Pellegrino Antonio Orlandi in his ABC pittorico of 1704, Fyt lived in Venice where he produced works for the Sagredo and Contarini families. He visited Naples, Florence and Genoa, and Orlandi states that he was in Spain and London.

In 1641, Fyt returned to Antwerp where he remained for the rest of his life apart from a brief trip around the Northern Provinces. He is frequently mentioned in judicial documents in Antwerp due to the numerous disputes and court cases with other painters and member of his own family in which he was involved, always for financial reasons. In 1640 the artist is registered in the guild of Romanists in Antwerp, a body that only admitted artists who had visited Rome. He was elected its dean in 1652.

Fyt was a highly prolific artist, producing still lifes with flowers or fruit, hunting scenes and animals. He was a celebrated artist in his own lifetime and his works were in leading collections. His innovative game pieces were influential for painters of this genre in France and in the Dutch Republic. He occasionally collaborated with other painters such as Jacob Jordaens, Erasmus Quellinus, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert and Cornelis Schut. Fyt’s work was extremely influential for still-life painters in Flanders, Holland and Italy.

Hunting was a pastime reserved for the well-off urban elite, who were eager to acquire Fyt’s game paintings for their homes. A lifestyle only open to aristocrats, Fyt seems to have chosen the perspective of an animal. The adoption of the animal viewpoint has been interpreted as Fyt’s reflection on new philosophical and scientific ideas on the differences and similarities between human consciousness, prevalent in Europe around that time. This rapidly oil study served as source material for several of finished paintings and etchings. Fyt’s prints are typically dated to the 1640s, and it would seem likely that this study was executed around the same time.