Frans Snyders was a well-connected fella, with a robust Rolodex of collaborators including, most famously, Peter-Paul Rubens, with whom he worked on dozens of paintings.

He studied the work of Giuseppe Castiglione in Rome, and received the support of Cardinal Federico Borromeo for a few months, in Milan. He was an apprentice to Pieter Breughel the Younger and Hendrick van Balen. Van Balen focused on ornate, almost over-the-top devotional images of saints, muses and ancient Roman deities, but, ever the cool teacher, he encouraged Snyders to follow the still life practice which would become his trademark. Like Francis Bacon, Snyders loved painting meat, and his canvases are adventures in sumptuous butchery.

After returning from Italy, Snyders and Rubens snagged a fantastic commission from King Philip IV of Spain, who hired them to make a number of paintings for his hunting lodge, the Torre de la Parada, and his Buen Retiro ("good spot to chill on vacation," with decorations by Diego Velázquez) and Alcázar palaces. It was a tag-team operation, with Rubens handling the landscapes and Snyders the animals. Snyders worked with Rubens for the rest of Rubens' life.

Occasionally, Snyders also collaborated with Jacob Jordaens, Jan Wildens, Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert, Erasmus Quellinus II, Theodor van Thulden, and other exotically-named men. Married to their sister, Margaretha, he worked with Cornelis de Vos and provided a role model for Paul de Vos, whose paintings look like Snyders works. He took several apprentices of his own, and his student Jan Fyt returned to his studio to collaborate even after becoming an independent master in his own right. That's company spirit for ya!

Snyders never had children and for his burial clothes he requested a Franciscan habit. He bequeathed his estate to his sister, Maria, who was a beguine, which means that she took personal vows and chose to live a devotional life. Beguines are different from nuns, in their more ambiguous and relatively informal affiliation—the last traditional beguine, Marcella Pattyn, lived until 2013.