The Story
The Wolf and Fox Hunt is an oil-on-canvas painting by Peter Paul Rubens, executed c. 1616, now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It shows mounted and walking hunters chasing two wolves and three foxes. It marks the beginning of an intensive creative phase in which Rubens focused on the theme of hunting. The painting was completed with the help of assistants, although the wolves were painted entirely by Rubens. By 67 the canvas had been trimmed at the top and left to fit into a client's home.
Created in 1621 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Peter Paul Rubens worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.
Executed in Oil on canvas, measuring 96 5/8 x 148 1/8 in. (245.4 x 376.2 cm), the surface rewards close looking. Peter Paul Rubens builds the composition through layered glazes and a tightly controlled palette, letting cool shadows recede so that the warm, lit passages step forward. The brushwork shifts from the precise to the almost dissolved — a hallmark of mature Baroque practice.
“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”
