In honor of dbra's new chicks ...

Melchoir d' Hondecoeter is one of the best painters of chicks and chickens in all of art history.

This painting is in the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia. There are similar great works by Hondecoeter closer to home in the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Toledo Museum of Art. Hondecoeter's works were executed on a grand scale, and we know from household inventories that they were displayed in prominent places in the homes of some of the wealthiest citizens of the Netherlands.

Collecting a menagerie of exotic birds was all the rage in the Netherlands in the 17th century, so the subjects of this painting probaby represented more than just a source of eggs for the artist and viewer.