Recent restoration has enabled a much better appreciation of this picture, since the thick layer of oxidised glaze that previously covered the surface made it impossible to judge the space and depth of the composition. As a result, the cockerel´s body is no longer outlined against the dark, plain background, but seen hanging from a string above a table inside some kind of architectural space -an arch can be glimpsed in the background- and enveloped in a vibrant range of yellows and browns.

The technical execution is perfect and reveals the artist´s talent as a draughtsman and the ease with which he is capable of representing texture. The colour is applied over a light red preparation, with flowing brush-strokes that evoke the soft smoothness of the cockerel´s plumage in a strikingly natural way. The light entering from a source on the left, outside the field of vision, illuminates the bird´s body, transforming it into a flash of white and red that lights up the surrounding half-light.

Formal execution and compositional simplicity have led Robinson (1974) to date the panel in the late 1650s.

Dead Cockerel is one of a small number of still lifes by Gabriël Metsu preserved today. The picture draws on the kind of still life representing game birds hanging from one leg that was cultivated by Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-1659/61), Elias Vonck (1605-1652) and Matthias Bloem (active 1643-1668). It may have acted as a source of inspiration for Willem van Aelst (1627-1683/4) in his Two Cockerels suspended by a String, signed and dated 1681].

In the catalogue for the exhibition organised at the Lakenhal Museum in 1966, Dead Cockerel is identified with a picture in the sale of the Sandra Middelburgh collection (3 August 1713, no. 111) referred to by Hofstede de Groot (1908-28, no. 249a). This is an identification which Robinson, Valdivieso (1973) and the Museo del Prado (1996 catalogue) have all endorsed. However, it would in fact seem unlikely that this is one and the same picture, given that the Middelburgh sale picture is called Dead Birds (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 305).