Jan Weenix, 'certainly the finest and most celebrated Dutch game painter' (S.A. Sullivan, The Dutch Gamepiece, Totowa, Montclair and Woodbridge, 1984, p. 62) was born and died in Amsterdam. The present picture was, however, painted during the period (around 1702-1714 or later) that the artist was court painter to the Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm, executing for him his masterpieces, the paintings for Schloss Bensberg now in the Bayerischen Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich.

The repetition of particular poses for game is characteristic of Weenix's work; thus the hare makes earlier appearances, with minor variations, in pictures of 1682/3 at Karlsruhe, of 1687 at Schwerin and of 1701 at Kassel (E. Gemar-Koeltzsch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, Lingen, 1995, 3, illustrated pp. 1088, 1090 and 1093) and in a composition of 1696 along with a similar type of urn in the Louvre.