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'The Four Elements: Air. A Poultry Market with the Prodigal Son in the Background', 1570
by Joachim Beuckelaer
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Different kinds of fowl are offered for sale, some still alive in large wicker baskets, others dead and ready for plucking. On the platter in the centre of the foreground are rabbits, and to either side eggs in a basket and stacks of cheeses. In the middle of the composition, at a distance, the prodigal son is shown leaning debauchedly against a woman.
This is one of four pictures which takes as its theme the four elements of Earth, Water, Air and Fire. In the art of the Low Countries in the later 16th and 17th centuries it became common to symbolise the elements by references to the natural world. Here, seductive representations of market produce for sale or for cooking are combined with relevant Biblical episodes. Beuckelaer's series of paintings are among the earliest and most accomplished fusions of these themes. These four pictures were produced in Antwerp, probably for a patron in Italy.
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Photo © The National Gallery, London
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