Lot Essay
As P. Hibbs Decouteau, op. cit, p.41-42, points out, there is a striking similarity between the present lot and the signed picture in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The Ashmolean picture can be dated to 1620-1630, on the basis of the depicted silver ducat or Brabant coin, struck in that decade. The same basket of fruit appears in both works, and the rendering of the highlights on the vines and leaves is very similar in both pictures. However, since the present lot shows a lower viewpoint, a reduction of objects and a more condensed composition, Hibbs Decouteau suggest a date of execution in the late 1620s.