A lobster, a crab on a pewter plate, a bunch of grapes and a fig in a tazza, a wicker basket with fruit, a bottle of wine, oysters, cherries and cucumbers on a stone ledge with song birds

We are grateful to Mr. Fred Meijer of the RKD for the attribution, given after examining the picture in the original. The anonymous artist was so named by Mr. Meijer who identified a group of works by the same hand that had been erroneously attributed to Michiel Simons (active 1648-1673); the style is in fact closer to that of his contemporary, Jan-Pauwel Gillemans II (1651-c. 1708), with whose work the artist must have been familiar. It would seem likely that the artist worked in England for a period of time, given the number of paintings by this hand that have surfaced in private English collections (see for example the pair sold from the collection of the Marquess of Bath at Longleat, Christie's, London, 14 June 2002, lot 625, for £40,000).