Stillleben mit Hase, Geflügel, Katze und Äffchen

Stillleben mit Hase, Geflügel, Katze und Äffchen (Still Life with Hare, Poultry, Cat, and Monkey), painted in 1636 and noted in the Munich Central Collecting Point records, is a compositionally complex animal still life that extends beyond typical game still life by including a monkey — an exotic creature with strong symbolic associations in Flemish Baroque painting. Monkeys appeared in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Flemish painting as symbols of foolishness, imitation, and sensory appetite, derived from the Latin term for the ape, simia, which puns with similis (similar) — the monkey as a parody of human behavior. A monkey in a still life reaching for food or interfering with arranged game introduced both narrative animation and moral commentary. The cat's predatory interest in the poultry and the monkey's interfering presence create multiple points of tension within what might otherwise be a static arrangement. The Munich Central Collecting Point provenance connects this work to the Nazi-era displacement of artworks.

The unusual combination of hare, poultry, cat, and monkey requires Fyt to handle four distinctly different fur or feather textures within a single composition. Each animal's surface is approached with species-appropriate technique: the hare's soft short fur, the bird's varied plumage, the cat's tabby markings, and the monkey's longer, more disheveled coat all receive individual treatment.