Stilleven van gevogelte, haas en uil

Dated 1657 and at the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich, this still life of poultry, hare, and owl combines domestic and wild avian subjects in an arrangement that bridges Boel's hunt still-life practice and his natural history study orientation. The owl was a consistently symbolic bird in seventeenth-century painting — associated with wisdom, night, and death depending on context — and its inclusion in a poultry-and-game still life introduces an ambiguous element: is it dead game, a captured bird, or a symbolic interloper? Munich's Bavarian state collections acquired extensive Flemish material through the electoral collections of the Wittelsbach dynasty, and Boel is represented here alongside major contemporaries.

Owl feathers present a distinct rendering challenge: their soft, noise-reducing structure creates a matte, almost velvety surface texture very different from the glossy plumage of pheasant or partridge. Boel likely renders owl feathers with dryer, less glazed brushwork than his wildfowl, exploiting the difference in texture to differentiate the two bird types unambiguously within the composition.