Boston-born Alexander Pope is best known for his animal portraits and for trompe l'oeil representations of dead game and sporting gear. Primarily self-taught, he also likely had some instruction from Boston painter and sculptor William Rimmer. Pope provided illustrations for two volumes of lithographs, "Upland Game Birds and Water Fowl of the United States" (1878) and "Celebrated Dogs of America" (1882), and the Czar of Russia reportedly owned two of Pope's painted, life-sized carvings of fowl.

From 1879 to 1883, Pope had specialized in painted wood relief carvings of dead game birds mounted on panels. By 1881, he had also begun to produce these illusionistic subjects in oil. Vertical still lifes of dead game had been a popular trompe l'oeil motif since the 17th century, and representations of game as trophies of the hunt became fashionable in America in the last decades of the 19th century. "Still Life with Two Game Birds" is a life-sized depiction of two grouse. Pope must have found the striated feathers and the white undersides of the birds' wings compelling, since he portrayed grouse in at least seven other trophy paintings. He skillfully depicted the texture of the feathers and the arrangement of wings against the dark background. Pope enhanced the illusion by signing a card painted to look as if it had been attached to the canvas.

Janet Comey

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