Osias Beert the Elder

Flemish, c. 1580 - 1624

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Flemish painter (c.1580-1623)

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We look slightly down onto five plates, bowls, and dishes filled with oysters, raisins, prunes, figs, and sweets along with a wine glass and decanter, a stack of round, wooden boxes, and two seashells arrayed on a wooden tabletop against a dark background in this horizontal still life painting. Closest to us to our left, eleven glistening oysters on the halfshell are arranged on a round, iron-gray dish. Also close to us, to our right, a white porcelain bowl with a wide, flaring lip is painted with blue flowers, and it is piled with breads, rolls, and pastries. Two shells sit near that bowl: one shimmering, spiraling, ivory-white shell with brown marks sits to our left and an elongated, white shell with a ruffle along its length sits in the lower right corner of the panel. Between and behind these two dishes is a vessel with a pedestal foot and a wide, shallow bowl, filled with white almonds and rods that have been covered with white sugar. In the back left, a dark gray bowl holds raisins and other dried fruit along with an object that could be a slice of bread or cheese. Opposite it, a similar dish holds brown figs that more closely resemble chestnuts. To the back right, the lid of one of the three round, shallow boxes stacked along the right edge of the composition leans against the pile. The inner lid is covered with quince paste, which resembles apricot preserves. One glass goblet with a wide bowl is nearly filled with amber-colored liquid in the back left corner, beyond the dried fruit. A glass decanter, also filled with gold-colored wine, sits to our left of the pedestal-footed vessel holding the sugared sweets, at the center of the composition. The still life is brightly lit from our left.
Osias Beert the Elder, Dishes with Oysters, Fruit, and Wine, c. 1620/1624, oil on panel, Patrons' Permanent Fund, 1995.32.1

Dishes with Oysters, Fruit, and Wine

Osias Beert the Elder · c. 1620/1624 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1995.32.1

Bibliography

1951

  • Hairs, Marie-Louise. "Osias Beert l'Ancien, peintre de fleurs." Revue belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art 20 (1951): 237-251.

1983

  • Greindl, Edith. Les peintres flamands de nature morte au XVIIe siècle. Brussels, 1983: 22-36.

1993

  • Sutton, Peter C., and Marjorie E. Wieseman, et al. The Age of Rubens. Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Toledo Museum of Art. Boston, 1993: 526-528.

2005

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2005: 2.