Animal representations in the European painting collection of Brukenthal National

Text from Sanda Marta, the exhibition curator:

In the 17th century, the people showing interest in art inclined to a specific realism and to subjects in painting that represented the profane world and the every-day life as evinced in genre scenes, landscapes and still lives. Among the landscapes, the representations of animals became autonomous through the means of a realism of their own. The well-known Bestiaries of the Middle-Ages emerged towards scenes as Orpheus playing to animals or Noah’s Ark approached by mannerist between 1580 and 1610. At the same time there were also small sized works representing animals and insects, encompass in the area of the cabinet paintings. The painters that were active between 1620 and the end of the 17th century produced works depicting animals of various species, minutely described in their own habitat. 
The present exhibition presents 72 works on the subject appertaining to Flemish and Dutch masters: Jan Fyt, Frans Snyders, Philips Wouwerman and Jan Josias Ossenbeeck, German and Austrain: Philipp Ferdinand Hamilton, Philipp Peter Roos and Johann Kien and Italien: Domenico Brandi, Francesco Casanova and Giovanni Benedeto Castiglione as well as the French painter Jean Baptiste Oudry.
Some of the works are exhibited for the first time: Lunch rest by Willem Romeyn, Fruits and red parrot by Paulus de Vos, Rooster fight the manner of Melchior d’Hondecoeter, In danger by Melchior d’Hondecoeter, American vultures and Aquatic birds by Philipp Ferdinand Hamilton.