(Antwerp 1623-1667)
Fruit on a stone ledge,
oil on canvas, 35 x 40 cm, framed

We are grateful to Jaco Rutgers for confirming the attribution after inspection of the original.

The present varied and masterfully rendered still life is a fine example of the oeuvre of the Antwerp painter Joris van Son. A specialist in the depiction of fruits, van Son’s life like and delicate works were described by his first biographer, Cornelis de Bie (see Het Gulden Cabinet, Antwerp 1662) as watermondt, or mouth-watering. The handling of the white grapes in the centre of the composition, along with the selection of fruit still kissed by morning dew, are characteristic of the artist’s best work, which Rutgers compares with those found in the picture sold at Sotheby’s, London, (4 December 2014, lot 144) and the work in a private collection formerly exhibited in Amsterdam and Braunschweig (see. S. Segal A Fruitful Past, Amsterdam 1983, p. 122, no. 41).

Rutgers adds that in common to all three pictures are the rendering of the grapes with quick but accurate brushwork, in diverse tones of green with yellow and white highlights. He also notes the moist and slimy qualities of the flesh of the cut oysters, here picked out by van Son’s building up of thick impasto, under the influence of the technique of accomplished Flemish masters such as Frans Snijders (1579–1657) or Jan Fyt (1611–1661). Van Son may have received his training in the workshop of Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606–1684), a celebrated Dutch master who worked in Antwerp, who, as van Son has done here, often included an atmospheric landscape background in the corner of the composition, heightening its overall evocativeness.