Grapes, apples, peaches and apricots in a Wan-li bowl, with quinces, a frog, a caterpillar, a fly and a beetle on a stone ledge

Laurens J. Bol, the great historian of Dutch Golden Age still-life painters, lists this work among Balthasar van der Ast’s earliest signed and dated paintings (loc. cit.). Van der Ast was trained as a painter by his brother-in-law, Ambrosius Bosschaert I, in whose home he was raised and where he remained until at least 1619, when he is first recorded among the members of the Guild of Saint Luke in Utrecht. His earliest paintings are influenced by both Bosschaert I, and the floral still lifes of his son (and van der Ast’s nephew), Ambrosius Bosschaert II. The high vantage point and slightly muted palette mimic the style of Bosschaert I’s fruit paintings, as exemplified by a similarly dated painting in a private collection (fig. 1, sold Chirstie’s, New York, 19 April 2018, lot 103). The sparseness of this early composition is also indebted to Bosschaert I’s example, each item carefully arranged along the stone ledge, allowing for the fruits to be observed individually. Van der Ast’s later works include a greater variety of objects, frequently merging multiple elements, such as a bowl of fruit, a floral arrangement and a selection of shells. The beginnings of these more varied and complex compositions can be seen here, with the addition of the realistically depicted toad and insects included alongside the fruits.