Pewter plates with peaches and grapes, and a porcelain plate with peaches and plums, bread, and a knife on a table top

Osias Beert was among a pioneering group of still-life painters that included Georg Flegel, Ambrosius Bosschaert I and Jan Brueghel I, all of whom made innovations in the depiction of still-life subjects. While very few details are known about Beert's life, his importance as one of the most influential artists of the earliest generation of still-life painters in Flanders has always been readily acknowledged. He spent his entire career in his native city of Antwerp, where he became a master of the painters’ Guild of Saint Luke in 1602, and where he is also recorded as being a cork merchant and a member of the Chamber of Rhetoric. Beert rarely signed his works and none are dated; as such establishing a chronology for his works has proved challenging for art historians. The present painting bears compositional similarities to another table-top still life, with a porcelain plate containing peaches, pewter plates with grapes and a bread roll, that was last known to be with The Hallsborough Gallery in London (1963), and has been dated between 1610 and 1624.

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs (private communication, 30 October 2023).