Still life drawings of the 17th century are rare, and less than forty drawings of this type of larder or market scenes by Snyders are known, of which several important examples are in the British Museum. It has been a matter of some scholarly debate as to whether such drawings were preliminary studies for paintings or were instead made after the painting was finished, as a record of the composition. Such drawings by Snyders may also have been kept in the workshop, to be reused by pupils and assistants for painted versions of the master’s still life compositions.

While no painting related to the present sheet is known, many of the same elements shown here appear in other still life compositions by Snyders. The prominent motif of a boar’s head - a hunting trophy - placed in a copper tureen, for example, is found in several paintings and drawings by the artist, and appears in a manner particularly close to that in the present sheet in a late signed painting in the Hannema-De Stuers Fundatie in Overijssel. (The depiction of a boar’s head, as one modern scholar has suggested, may also have had emblematic connotations in 17th century Flanders; ‘the beast’s gaping mouth, fearsome tusks and lubricious snout evoke a multitude of symbolic associations, ranging from sexual virility and lechery to the sinner, the heretic and the devil.’) Stylistically, this drawing may be compared with such still life drawings by Snyders as a study of a Dead Game, Fruit and Vegetables in the Musée du Louvre in Paris. A weak copy of the present sheet was on the art market in Belgium in 1960.