Pieter Boel

Pieter Boel (1626–1674) was a Flemish painter who specialised in lavish still lifes and animal paintings. Pieter Boel revolutionized animal painting by working directly from life in a natural setting. He thus arrived at representations of animals showing them in their natural, characteristic poses. After travels in Italy in the 1640s, he returned to work in Antwerp before moving to Paris in 1668. Under the supervision of Charles Le Brun Boel became a painter in the court of King Louis XVI in 1674, although he died at the end of the same year.