(Cologne circa 1590–1632 Hanau)
A fruit and flower still life with birds,
oil on panel, 50 x 69.5 cm, framed

Peter Binoit, a native of Cologne, was trained in the workshop of the still life painter Daniel Soreau in Hanau, who died in 1619. However, documents proving Binoit’s stay in Hanau or Frankfurt am Main only date from the time after Soreau’s death. Gerhard Bott (see G. Bott, Die Stilllebenmaler Soreau, Binoit, Codino und Marrell in Hanau und Frankfurt 1600–1650, Hanau 2001, p. 47) describes the relationship between Soreau and Binoit as teacher and student: “Nevertheless it cannot be stated with certainty whether he arrived at Soreau’s workshop as a trained painter, a journeyman, or as an apprentice, and exactly when he actually first met Daniel Soreau.”

Whereas Binoit is first and foremost known for his magnificent bouquets of flowers, in 1615 he also took to painting banquet still lifes with fruit in a Wan-Li bowl, individual pieces of fruit scattered on the table, and small bunches of flowers (see Still Life of Fruit with Roses in a Slipware Vase, German private collection, G. Bott, op. cit., p. 202, no. WV.B.20). Bott explains: “It remains unclear whether Peter Binoit had obtained the knowledge of the models for his banquet still lifes from immediate observation in the Netherlands; from Dutch immigrants, artists, or art dealers who had brought these still lifes to the Lower Main region; from the cultivated and encyclopaedically educated painter, sculptor and art lover Daniel Soreau, who is said to have been his teacher; or even from the outstanding painter Georg Flegel, who was active in Frankfurt and influenced by Netherlandish painting. At the time, the painter Peter Binoit was able to choose from many sources of information: there were no obstacles in the way of the dissemination of this new pictorial genre, which soon became as popular as that of flower painting.” For another still life of fruit featuring dead birds like the present composition, see Still Life of Fruit with a Bird dated to 1618 in a Southern German private collection (G. Bott, op. cit., p. 206, no. WV.B.31).

We are grateful to Fred Meijer for endorsing the present painting as an autograph work by Peter Binoit on the basis of a high resolution digital photograph.