A huntsman resting by a tree with a hound, chickens and other birds

Bernard Keil was apprenticed to the Copenhagen court painter, Maarten van Steenwinckel, before entering the Amsterdam workshop of Rembrandt van Rijn in 1642, where he remained for two years. His encounter with Rembrandt would shape much of his early technique. On travelling to Italy in 1651, he received a large number of commissions for portraits, religious pictures, bambocciate and palace and church interiors. The influence of Bernardo Strozzi, Domenico Fetti and Giovanni Battista Langetti is discernible in the works produced throughout his Italian years.

The huntsman in the present composition would appear to be the prototype for a number of almost identical figures in works by Keil, such as the picture sold in these Rooms on 13 January 1987, lot 104.