Niche with Falconry Gear

Born and trained in The Hague, Christoffel Pierson was one of the first artists to specialize in illusory images of hunting gear. Hunting was a popular activity for Dutch nobility throughout the seventeenth century. The Hague, where the Princes of Orange had their courtly residence and where the States General convened, became the center of a growing culture of hunting that spawned this new genre of painting around mid-century. Pierson, who painted a number of trompe l'oeil hunting pieces with falconry elements, emphasized three-dimensional effects with illusionistically painted frames and niches.

In Niche with Falconry Gear, Pierson has arranged various pieces of hunting equipment in and around a wooden-framed niche set into a white stucco wall. In the arched niche he has placed a hunting horn, a net, a bow and arrow, and a small birdcage surmounted by a falcon's hood with a red plume. Two different types of whistles hang from the cage. A powder bag and powder horn are suspended to the left of the niche, and a shoulder bag hangs to the right. His strong contrasts of light and shade enliven the image and strengthen the sense that bright daylight floods the scene.