Head of a Bear

Watermark: none.
Widely influential as a painter of animals and still life, Snyders left over three hundred paintings, approximately one hundred drawings, and numerous oil sketches. Our new acquisition, a vigorously brushed oil sketch, is the Morgan's first work in this medium by the artist, joining six still lifes and animal studies by Snyders executed in chalk or pen and ink. The subject has not been connected with a painting and, given its unconventional support--a page from a ledger written in seventeenth-century Dutch script--may have been executed for the artist's pleasure.