Eine Löwin schlägt ein Wildschwein

The powerful modelling of the animals’ bodies and the imminent, certainly deadly bite which the boar can no longer avert, are evidence of Snyders’s close study of Rubens’s hunting scenes. The motif of the beast of prey biting into its quarry’s neck, based on that found in Classical art, also appears several times. Other than in its model, however, Snyders dispensed with figurative staffage and concentrated on the depiction of the animals in accordance with his specialisation as a painter of animals and still lifes.