A cockatoo, a monkey by a wicker basket of fruit, with a blue fronted Amazon parrot and figs, a melon, peaches and other fruit on a partially draped marble ledge, with a starling and a swallow in a wooded landscape, a classical building beyond

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs. Mr Meijer notes that there are two large decorative paintings with very similar marble ledges, both dated 1685, one in the Birmingham Museum, the other recorded in the collection of the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres; the present work may date to the same period.