Pears, grapes and a peach on a porcelain platter, with apples, a rose, shells, a dragonfly, a caterpillar and a lizard on a stone ledge, with a parrot on an upturned woven basket

Unrecorded until recently, this work evidences van der Ast's development as a still life painter. Having studied under Ambrosius Bosschaert, his brother-in-law, van der Ast went on to broaden his pictorial language to include a more diverse number of objects in his works, including shells and exotic fruit. The macaw, perched on the upturned basket here, gazes down at the group of shells, and in so doing draws the viewer's eye to this small cluster to the left. The meticulously described still life of shells, highly desirable objects at the time, sits in contrast to the more disordered abundance of fruit that dominates the centre; the bird acts as a bridge between the two groups, investing the work with a sense of exoticism. The upturned basket is a motif also seen in a composition in the Birmingham Museum, Alabama, while macaws appear in the picture of 1622 in the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge. The fine Chinese porcelain, depcited with great precision of draughtmanship, was also considered an exotic object of great rarity and precious value.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution on the basis of a photograph.