(Antwerp 1582–1647)
Grapes, peaches, plums and cherries in a wicker basket with dragonfly and butterfly nearby,
signed lower right: Hulsdonck FE,
oil on panel, 50 x 75 cm, framed

Provenance:
Aristocratic collection, Belgium

The present depiction of a wicker basket upon a wooden tabletop, piled high with fruit and enlivened by insects is a characteristic work from the hand of Jacob van Hulsdonck, one of the pioneers of the Antwerp still-life genre. The drops of water at the tabletop’s edge, and the glistening flesh of the white and black grapes in the basket, further complimented by the gleaming crimson skin of the cherries lying beneath, imbue the viewer with a divine sense of the beauty of all of God’s natural creation.

Jacob van Hulsdonck was born in Antwerp, before moving to Middelburg where began his painting of refined still lifes in the orbit of the renowned master Ambrosius Bosschaert, before returning to Antwerp where he became a master of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1608. Middleburg had a famous botanical garden, along with many important scholars of the natural world, and the dragonfly and acutely observed butterfly alighting on the stem of one of the grapes in the present picture also echoes the work of Bosschaert who based his motifs on similar careful observation.

Along with Osias Beert, van Hulsdonck played a role in the development of the still life genre in Flanders, although establishing a chronology for van Hulsdonck’s oeuvre is complex as he only left a single dated work, his 1614 Breakfast piece with a fish, ham and cherries, conserved in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, England. Although little is known of his workshop practice, Isaac Soreau is thought to have been van Hulsdonck’s pupil.