A Dead White Cock 1642 - 1683

Willem van Aelst painted "A Dead White Cock" using oil on canvas sometime in the mid-17th century. Van Aelst worked in the Dutch Republic, a center of global commerce. Such "still life" paintings were collected by wealthy merchants to signal their refinement and worldliness. The work is a potent display of the artist's skill. It speaks to the Dutch obsession with accurate representation, part of an emerging scientific culture centered on observation and documentation. The dead cock itself could be read as a reference to contemporary class structures. Hunting rights were highly restricted; depicting hunted fowl could be a way to assert status. Consider how the dark background focuses attention on the details of the bird's plumage. Understanding the painting means consulting a range of sources, including household inventories, hunting regulations, and the biographies of artists and patrons. We can then understand how cultural values are both reflected and shaped through images such as this.