Abraham Mignon was born in Frankfurt, where he became a pupil of Jacob Marrel, probably in late 1650. Marrel brought his pupil to Utrecht, either in the 1650s or early 1660s, but certainly by 1664, and Mignon settled there, absorbings the influence of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, whose studio he seems to have taken over following De Heem's departure in 1672. This still life, one of his finest, probably dates from the 1660s.

In its pyramidal composition this painting is related to another Mignon in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (fig. 1), in which a lavish ensemble of fruit is piled up on a table draped with a cloth, a partly draped curtain above, all observed by a goldfinch perched in a window to the upper left – a motif found in a number of works by Mignon.¹ While the two pictures are similarly composed, the individual elements, apart from the bird in the window, are entirely different. Both pictures reveal Mignon's interest in the mature still lifes of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, who excercised a much stronger influence on Mignon than his teacher Jacob Marrel.

The Saxon Royal collects ion in Dresden owned fourteen works by Mignon, the majority acquired during the reign of August the Strong. Friedrich Augustus I (1697–1733) (fig. 2), Elector of Saxony and from 1697 King of Poland, known as August the Strong because of his physical prowess, was one of the greatest collects ors to have ever lived. With his son August III he was responsible for assembling almost all of the art treasures that, despite some subsequent losses and sales, remains one of the greatest collects ions of Western Art from the Renaissance to the late Baroque. A number of works came to the Royal collects ion through the minister Count Wackerbarth-Salmour, who later became Chief Court Master to Elector Friedrich Christian (1722–63). Having been appointed chamberlain in Dresden in 1712, he spent at least the next eight years travelling around Europe on unofficial diplomatic missions, during which t.mes he most likely acquired the present work. Curiously, only some of the fourteen Mignons in the collects ion were correctly identified in Johann Adam Steinhäuser's 1722 (in fact 1722–28) inventory: the others, including this picture, were, despite their signatures, assigned to Mignon's probable teacher Jan Davidsz. de Heem.

As part of the settlement between the former rulers of Saxony and the State of Saxony, a number of paintings were deaccessioned and their ownership transferred to the Haus Wettin. These included the present work and another Abraham Mignon, which were sold together through Ball & Graupe in Berlin to Ludwig Traube, and again in the enforced sale in 1935 as lot 241 (a & b).² They were acquired at the sale by Galerie Paffrath, but were then separated, the other work, also a sottobosco still life, of grapes, melons and other fruit, being sold in 1935 to the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, where it remains, having recently been the subject of a compensation settlement with the Community of Heirs of Ludwig Traube and Gertrud Bühler (fig. 3).²

Ludwig Traube owned a Berlin publishing house connected with the textile industry, publishing the Zeitschrift für Textilwirtschaft. Following his death in 1928 his widow Gertrud married Eduard Bühler, also a publisher. Disbarred from ownership of businesses by the Nazi regime, they were constrained to sell assets, including both Mignons, to fund their departure for Brussels, where Gertrud died in May 1945.

We are grateful to Dr Fred G. Meijer for endorsing Mignon's authorship on the basis of a digital image. On the basis of an old photograph he had been unable to form a definitive view when listing it in a footnote to his entry for the Oxford picture in his catalogue of the Daisy Linda Ward bequest to the Ashmolean Museum.

We are also grateful to Dr Magdalena Kraemer-Noble for her enthusiastic response to the painting, on the basis of high-resolution images, which was previously known only to her through a black-and-white photograph.

¹ Inv. A 580. Signed, oil on canvas, 80 x 70 cm.; see Meijer, 2003, pp. 252–54, no. 58, reproduced, and colour plate 30.

² The other Mignon was in the 1722 inventory as no. A 135, and Woermann, 1902 etc no. 2023.

³ Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle, inv. no. M59; see Kraemer-Noble, 2007, p. 158, no. 55, reproduced