Still life with shooting gear and flowers I

Still Life with Shooting Gear and Flowers I, dated 1715 and held at the Fundación Banco Santander in Madrid, belongs to Oudry's earliest independent period and pairs the utilitarian objects of the hunt — powder flask, game bag, shotgun or fowling piece — with the decorative beauty of cut flowers in an unusual combination that bridges hunting still life and floral painting. The inclusion of flowers alongside shooting gear creates a juxtaposition of violence and beauty, utility and decoration, that was more common in Flemish still life than in French, and suggests Oudry's early engagement with Northern European precedents. The Banco Santander Foundation's art collection, assembled over the twentieth century, represents one of Spain's important corporate art holdings. The companion piece (Shooting Gear and Flowers II) at the same institution forms a pair that was presumably conceived together.

Canvas with the compositional challenge of combining inorganic manufactured objects (gun metal, leather, brass powder flask) with organic floral forms. Each material type requires distinct handling — the gun's metal barrel and stock with their specific reflective and matte qualities, the leather game bag with its soft, irregular surface, and the flowers with their petals' translucent delicacy. The 1715 early date shows these skills already present before Oudry's animal specialization took hold.