A Still Life with peaches, grapes, a butterfly and a snail

Herman Henstenburgh was a self-taught artist until 1683 when he became a pupil of Johannes Bronkhorst, a painter and pastry cook, who gave him lessons in art and trained him as a pastry chef. After specializing mainly in birds and insects, in 1695 Henstenburgh broadened his repertoire to include flowers and fruit. This kind of composition appealed to collectors of the time and brought the artist fame.

Another very similar version of this composition is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. 1898 A 3501; see J. W. Niemeijer, Eighteenth-Century Watercolous from the Rijksmuseum Printroom, Amsterdam, exhib. cat., New York, The Frick Collection, 1993, no. 27, ill.).