Frans Snyders (1579-1657), the famous Flemish painter, is primarily remembered for executing the animal figures in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens.
He trained under Pieter Brueghel the Younger and became a master painter in 1602, but it took a dozen more years for him to reach his maturity as an artist.
It was then that Rubens asked him to collaborate on the animals in his paintings. Snyders painted the eagle, for example, in Rubens's “Prometheus” (1611-12; Philadelphia Museum of Art). Rubens also supplied Snyders with oil sketches of subjects that Snyders enjoyed using for his own large canvases.
Motifs sketched by Rubens continually reappear in his paintings. Snyders painted solidly and with great vigor. His skillful application of unbroken color and his employment of reflected light probably antedate Rubens's use of these techniques.
Snyders also painted still-life subjects such as fruits and vegetables, and he may even have executed human figures in some of Rubens's paintings. Late in his career Snyders specialized in violent hunting scenes, which were then very popular. They resemble Rubens's late treatment of this subject.