(Antwerp 1585–1649 The Hague)
Peaches on a silver tazza standing in a niche,
indistinctly signed and dated: I. … FECIT 16?9,
oil on panel, 40 x 32 cm, framed

Provenance:
Collection of the late Mr R.G. de Boer, Laren, 1973 (as L. Susio);
Collection Wetzlar, Amsterdam (as Clara Peeters);
with Alfred Brod, London

Exhibited:
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Unbekannte Schönheit, 1956, no. 198;
Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, Dutch Still lives from the 17th Century, 1962, cat. no. 33, pl. 49 (as Anthony Claesz.)

The present still life is a characteristic example of the oeuvre of Jan Baptist van Fornenburgh an accomplished still-life painter of the Gouden Eeuw. The present panel has particularly strong similarities, notably in the arch with marbled corners to several other works by van Fornenburgh, such as the Still Life of Flowers (see E. Gemar-Koeltzsch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, vol. II, Lingen 1995, p. 354, no. 128/5).

In old inventories in the Hague several flower pieces by ‘Jan Baptist’ can be found. Jan Baptist van Fornenburgh signed his works with a monogram IBVF or just IB. Fruit pieces such as this one with peaches on a tazza are also recorded, as in the inventory of Adriaen Evert van Bleyswijck in Delft from 1666 where there are two ‘Freutgens’ [Fruit pieces] monogrammed IBVF.

Van Fornenburgh was born to Flemish parents who came to the Netherlands likely as religious refugees. By 1621 van Fornenburgh was recorded as an artist in Amsterdam, and later lived near Utrecht where the flower painter Balthasar van der Ast had his workshop, and whose influence may be seen in van Fornenburgh’s early work. In 1629 van Fornenburgh was admitted to the Hague’s Guild of Saint Luke, where the ageing Jacob de Gheyn II remained the pre-eminent artistic force in still life painting in the city, and of whom van Fornenburgh may be considered a follower.