The Game Vendor

This mature work from the Beuckelaer’s final years follows a compositional type perfected by the artist throughout his career. Dividing his canvas into three zones, he paints an expansive still life in the foreground, followed by figures in Flemish dress, and punctuated with a townscape. Typical of Beuckelaer is that he paints the architecture in the background as deftly as any of his still lifes.

Beuckelaer often preferred to depict Italian architecture, which he knew from Sebastiano Serlio’s 1537 architectural treatise. This painting stands out for its characteristically Northern European urban landscape. Variations of the painting are housed in the museums of Brussels and Ghent and perhaps belong to a suite of allegorical works symbolizing the four elements.