(Antwerp 1582–1647)
Raspberries in a blue and white bowl with other fruit in a silver dish, with flowers nearby,
oil on panel, 49 x 62 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

We are grateful to Fred Meijer for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs.
He compares the carnations, the maybug and the cherries with those in a signed work, entitled A vase of flowers and a basket of fruit on a wooden table (see RKD database no. 1001197419).

Jacob van Hulsdonck was born in Antwerp, moving to Middelburg where he 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. Middelburg had a famous botanical garden and one can presume that artists such as van Hulsdonck used the garden to observe and study nature.

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.