Lot 08

Abraham van Calraet (1642 - 1722) STILL LIFE WITH PEACHES AND BUTTERFLIES

Abraham van Calraet's still lifes almost always depict peaches arranged in china porcellain bowls or directly on tabletops, surrounded by grapes and butterflies and sometimes shells and cherries. The artist's painting style is characterised by a very spare impasto applied with a broad brush, translating the different textures of his subjects into colour, light and shadow. Light is used to emphasize a narrowly defined area of the composition to make the pieces of fruit, especially peaches, stand out against the shadowy and usually very dark surrounding space. In addition, the artist also painted animals and landscapes.