A festoon of fruit hanging from a bow-tied ribbon in a niche

Jan Pauwel Gillemans worked in Antwerp, where he initially trained as a goldsmith, before later specialising as a still life painter. In this Festoon, as with much of Gillemans’ oeuvre, the painter’s stylistic and compositional influence from the work of Jan Davidsz. de Heem is evident. The trompe l’oeil festoon of fruit, hanging in a fictive niche, was a subject which had been popularised by artists like de Heem in the circa 1650s. Gillemans has paid careful attention to the rendering of the different textures and accents of light across the work, from the pale bloom on the grapes to the shining catchlights on the cherries. Some of the fruits, like the peach, fig and plum at the bottom of the swag have split open. This over-ripeness, anticipating the fruit beginning to decay (as some of the grapes in Gillemans’ still life have already begun to do) would have been understood as a traditional vanitas symbol of the transience of life and all worldly goods.