Still life of fruit in a basket together with game, a bowl of fraises-de-bois, artichokes, asparagus and a squirrel upon a table draped with a red cloth

This 1635 canvas from the National Gallery of Art in Washington presents an extravagant horizontal still life: fruit in a basket alongside game, wild strawberries, artichokes, asparagus, and a squirrel on a red-draped table. The squirrel — a live animal among the dead game and cut vegetables — serves the same narrative function as the cat in Snyders's fish pictures, introducing animated life and potential disruption into the otherwise static display. Squirrels appeared frequently in Flemish still lifes as symbols of industrious accumulation — the animal's habit of hoarding nuts was read as an emblem of prudent stewardship. The presence of artichokes and asparagus alongside fruit and game creates a seasonal composite: spring vegetables alongside summer fruit alongside autumnal game, compressing the year's abundance into a single impossible display. The National Gallery's example is among the most compositionally ambitious of Snyders's tabletop arrangements, with the red cloth providing a warm chromatic ground unifying the diverse elements.

The red cloth serves both as compositional anchor and as a chromatic foil for the cooler greens and yellows of the vegetables and fruit. Snyders varies his brushwork dramatically across the surface: impasto for the asparagus tips, smooth glazes for the fruit skins, short directional strokes for the game birds' feathers, and delicate detail for the squirrel's bushy tail. The basket weave is rendered with meticulous linear precision.