Blanc says:
"In one of these the artist has amused himself with making his usual heroes play a scene of human comedy; and, as a professional fabulist would have imagined it, he has shown a jackdaw stripped of the borrowed plumes with which he had adorned himself in his vanity. This is a very fine picture, although it has somewhat blackened in certain parts. Hondecoeter seems to us to have been happier in another canvas in which he has grouped various birds. It seems as if on this occasion he wanted to prove what prodigies he was capable of in the touch of divers plumages; and the effect he has obtained is, in truth, astonishing. We could not find the equivalent of this lightness of touch and of this coloring either in Gryff[19] or in the two Weenixes, or in any of the masters who have tried to paint birds, with the possible exception of Giacomo Victor."[20]
His Preparation for Bird-painting.—"It is true that before having succeeded so well in the representation of the bird, Hondecoeter made a long study, not only of its external form, but of its habits, customs, and manner of life. His studio had been turned into a menagerie, or, rather, a game preserve. He had paid particular attention to the education of a handsome cock, which seemed to comprehend every word and gesture of his master; and who, at the slightest sign, came near the easel and posed, often in very fatiguing attitudes, for hours."
Hondecoeter's Skill in painting Farmyard Scenes.—"In painting, Melchior d'Hondecoeter was a very able man without leaving the poultry yard, and was satisfied with painting on the spot either the bloody dramas or the peaceful scenes of the farmyard—the hen teaching her chickens to scratch for grubs, the duck giving her little ones their first swimming lesson, the superb cock keeping watch over his seraglio, the peacock spreading his magnificent tail, and those memorable combats in which for a fine-plumaged Helen, two rivals spur one another while awaiting the hawk's talons. He painted 'the crested gentry' and knew how to interest us in them by means of picturesque truth, rustic grace, color, and spirit.
"Melchior, after the death of his father, found an excellent guide in his uncle, J. B. Weenix, and followed his manner till his death in 1660 without servility."[21]
Burger says:
His Pictures of Bird Families.—"No one has painted better than he cocks and hens, ducks and drakes, and particularly little chicks and ducklings. He has understood such families as the Italians have the mystical Holy Family; he has expressed the motherhood of the hen as Raphael has the motherhood of the Madonna. In fact, the subject is more naturally treated because it has less sublimity. Hondecoeter gives us here a mother-hen, who could face the Madonna of the Chair. She bends over with solicitude, with outspread wings, beneath which peep the excited heads of the little chickens; while on her back is perched the privileged bambino: she does not dare move, the good mother!"
A picture of Cock and Hens by his father, Gijsbert d'Hondecoeter (1604-53), was acquired in 1876. He was the teacher of his more talented son, who also studied with his uncle, Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-60), no pictures of whom are owned by the Mauritshuis.
Jan Weenix's Tasteful Compositions.—Two pictures of Jan Weenix (1640-1719) hang in this gallery and are good examples. One is The Dead Swan, the other is Game. Though Weenix painted portraits, landscapes, and even seaports, his chief works represent dead animals, the size of life. Peacocks, pheasants, partridges, geese, and most frequently swans, figure in his pictures. Sometimes, too, he introduces a living dog and paints it in the most spirited manner. Weenix had great taste in composition and arranged his models (more often dead than living) around the base of a handsome vase or urn in a beautiful park.
Reynolds and Blanc on Jan Weenix's Paintings.—"What excellence in coloring and handling is to be found in the dead game of Weenix!" exclaimed Sir Joshua Reynolds, who declared that he saw no less than twenty dead swans by this painter during his walks through the Holland galleries. "In his works of small dimensions," says Blanc, "his execution is delicate and caressing; but it is broad and accentuated in his decorative paintings. At his best he was the equal of his father, which is no small praise."