Giovanni Quinsa, who was active in Naples in the mid 17th century, described himself as of Spanish origin in the signature on his only known signed work 'Gio Quinsa Spa.g. F 1641' (Spinosa, op. cit., pl.586; A. E. Pérez Sánchez, La Nature Morte Espagnole du XVIIe siècle à Goya, 1987, p.122, pl.112; Tecce, op. cit., p.886, fig.1061). The attribution of the present picture, proposed by Professor Spinosa in 1983 and endorsed by Angela Tecce, is doubted by Professor Briganti, who regards the present picture as an anonymous Spanish work of the 1630s, executed in the orbit of van der Hamen and Zurbarán