Dutch painters and duck feathers

Commonly featured in Renaissance art were many animal species, including birds. Adornment with feathers, of course, was de rigueur, and so can be seen in many works of this enlightened time. The paintings of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn are no exception, and though the average person might not be able to tell whether any given embellishment is of duck feathers, pheasant feathers, or of some other bird, no mistake can be made that this Dutch painter and etcher liked to use them in his compositions. "Man in a Golden Helmet," debatably one of the master's most famous paintings, has as its subject a soldier whose helmet is decorated with a feathered plume. Another Dutch painter a few centuries later featured the beautiful pheasant feather in his composition. "Pheasant Vendor by Candlelight" by Petrus van Schendel echoes Rembrandt's expertise with firelight and gives praise to nature's bounty. In it a man holds a dead pheasant by its feet near candlelight while an enchanting glow reflects in the eight apples that rest on the table before him.

Rembrandt painted numerous portraits during his lifetime. One such painting, titled "Portrait of a Lady with an Ostrich-Feather Fan" was completed in 1660. This companion painting to Rembrandt's "Portrait of a Gentleman" renders the ostrich feather fan with great skill. The lady seems to be in some sort of reverie so that the fan hangs from her hand loosely, in a somehow distracted manner. The artist could just have well painted in her hand something embellished with a pheasant feather or perhaps a hat accented with the kind of beautiful black curly duck feathers sold by ContinentalFeathers.com. In any case, one has the distinct feeling that anything painted by the artist would have been impressive and moving.