This magnificent still life of fruit, flowers, and exotic shells is amongst Van der Ast’s most successful compositions. It has much in common with other works from the mid-1620s, notably in the placement of singular elements, purposefully arranged, before a central basket piled high with various fruits with the shells sub-sectioned to one side.

After 1628 Van der Ast did not date any of his still lifes, rendering a chronology of his complete oeuvre somewhat difficult. However, in those works that are dated, between 1619 and 1628, a gradual progression of Van der Ast’s style is discernible. He trained in the studio of his brother-in-law Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder and entered his household in 1609 after his father’s death that year. Van der Ast’s early works follow the model set by his nephew Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger, alongside whom he would have worked in the workshop. Gradually Van der Ast adopted his own style and motifs, introducing new elements, such as the variety of sea shells. Reflecting the taste for exotic rarities imported from the New World, such shells, like tulip bulbs, were the subject of great monetary speculation. Included amongst the shells here are, at center right, the Episcopal Miter (mitra mitra: Linnaeus 1758) and, just beneath, a Marbled cone (conus marmoreus: Linnaeus 1758), both from the Indo-Pacific region. Van der Ast’s still lifes were initially rooted in the traditions of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Roelandt Savery but by the 1620s, with ambitious, minutely observed and realistic paintings such as the present work, he built a reputation that established him at the very forefront of Netherlandish still life painting.