A trompe l'oeil still life of a landscape print, a candle, a medal, a pipe, books and documents affixed to a partition

De le Motte was active in Tournai, where he entered into the Guild of Saint Luke in 1653. In 1670, he participated in the decoration of the triumphal arches for Louis XIV's second entry into the city. His remaining oeuvre of about a dozen pictures represent trompe-l'oeil still lifes usually with, as here, objects, prints or letters attached to a wooden partition. The compositional device of a shelf jutting out near the top of the picture is also used by the artist in a picture in a private collection, France (M. Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France, Fribourg/Paris, 1974, p. 165, illustated). In the same picture can be found an almost identical small silver-mounted glass bottle or phial hanging from a nail to that in the present picture.