Melons, plums, pomegranates, figs, grapes, cardoon and other fruit by a sculpted urn on a stone ledge

For a comparison with David de Coninck's other, caravaggesque treatments of fruit still lifes, see F. Zeri, La natura morta in Italia, II, Milan, 1989, p. 803, pl. 946-7. The composition in this picture, along a ledge close to the picture plane with a shallow depth of field, recalls the more archaic arrangements of Agostino Verrocchio (op. cit., pp. 720-727, pl. 853-865). However, the bunch of cardoon on the left hand side recalls Christian Berentz's Cardoon and other fruit and vegetables on a stony ledge by a fountain, in the Palazzo Corsini, Rome (op. cit., p. 823, pl. 977). The sculpted urn with a bacchanalian scene in the centre of the picture demonstrates the taste for the antique typical of the 1670s-1690s in Rome.