White Hen with Chickens
- Date
- 18th c.
- Object type
- painting
- Technique
- oil
- Material
- canvas
- Dimensions
- 35,0 x 45,1 cm
- Acquisition date
- 1783
- Location
- The Palace on the Isle - Portrait Room, ground floor
- Marks and inscriptions
- red number 789 of the Stanisław August collection, bottom left
- Place of Origin
- Dresden (Germany)
- Owner
- The Royal Łazienki
- Museum number
- ŁKr 849
In the catalogues of the Stanisław August collection, the entries relate only to the subject matter of the painting without any suggestions regarding attributions or definition of the artistic milieu. ... The attribution to Anton Ignaz Hamilton (1696–1770) was proposed by Stanisław Iskierski (S. Iskierski, Katalog galerii obrazów Pałacu w Łazienkach w Warszawie, Warszawa 1931, no. 48).
The style is, however, more akin to the oeuvre of Anton Ignaz’s uncle (his father’s brother), Philipp Ferdinand de Hamilton, whose work was probably the most recognizable among the Hamilton family of painters. Two of his brothers, Karl Wilhelm and Johann Georg, as well as their father Jacob, specialized in painting animals. ...
The manner in which the heads and eyes of the birds are rendered in the Łazienki picture is close to the manner of Philipp Ferdinand in his Gyrfalcons and Heron dating from 1748 in the Unteres Belvedere in Vienna ... , as well as in two paintings on sale at the Kinsky Auktionshaus in Vienna: 19 June 2012, no. 0044 (as circle of P.F. de Hamilton) and 24 June 2014, no. 0472 (P.F. Hamilton). However, the background is neutral, whereas most of Philipp Ferdinand’s paintings have a landscape background.
Hamilton’s White Hen with Chickens is visible in the painting by Marcin Zaleski, Interior of the Bedchamber in the Łazienki Palace, signed and dated 1847, in the National Museum in Warsaw (inv. no. MP 701). [See D. Juszczak, H. Małachowicz, The Stanisław August Collection of Paintings at the Royal Łazienki. Catalogue, Royal Łazienki Museum, Warsaw 2016, no. 49, p. 199.]