Fox With Two Herons

A close collaborator with Rubens, Snyders was a leading animal painter of his time and one of the first to represent Aesop's "Fables" on a large scale. This drawing is preparatory for an oil of about 1630-1640 that is now in the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. The artist has freely combined elements from two fables: "The Fox and the Heron (or the stork)" and "The Frogs Who Asked for a King." The first story tells how the heron repays the fox's lack of hospitality by serving him a meal in a long-necked bottle from which he cannot eat. In the second, the frogs pester Zeus with repeated requests for a ruler and are given in succession a log, an eel and, finally, a heron. The last ruler gobbles them up one by one. The respective morals are "one bad turn deserves another" and "better no king than a bad one."