A highly versatile still-life painter, Balthasar van der Ast was born in Middelburg in the Province of Zeeland.  He was taught to paint by his much older brother-in-law, the celebrated flower painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621).  In 1615, he moved with the Bosschaert family to Bergen-op-Zoom, and then to Utrecht, where he joined the painters’ guild in 1619.  In 1632, he settled in Delft, where he remained until his death in 1657. 

Still-life painting developed significantly in the art of Balthasar van der Ast.  Although strongly influenced by his teacher, he quickly developed an artistic personality of his own.  Like Bosschaert, he painted symmetrical bouquets of flowers in a vase, but from quite early on he expanded his repertoire of subjects and developed new compositions.  The still-life paintings of Roelant Savery (1576-1639), who joined the Utrecht painters’ guild in the same year as van der Ast, were another source of inspiration for the young van der Ast.  Besides flower pieces, van der Ast produced still lifes of fruit and shells, which he animated with insects, and small reptiles and animals.  During the course of his long career, he produced a large and varied body of work, ranging widely in size and format from very small coppers and panels to large canvases.

This relatively intimate panel is an excellent example of van der Ast’s work from his early maturity.  A blue and white Wan-li (Ming period) porcelain dish containing apples, peaches and bunches of grapes stands on a stone ledge against a dark background.  Scattered across the surface of the ledge are more peaches, two exotic seashells, a red and white carnation, the flowers of aquilegia and lilies-of-the-valley, and clusters of cherries and redcurrants.  The artist has enlivened the arrangement with branches of curling vine leaves and insects: a fly has alighted on one of the apples, another buzzes around above the pile of fruit, and a wasp has settled on the spiny Murex shell.  Droplets of water glisten on the fruit and leaves.  The rich, warm palette is dominated by glowing red and golden hues. 

Although beautifully signed, this panel does not bear a date.  However, it can be reliably dated to around 1624/25[i], when van der Ast was working in Utrecht.  The first half of the 1620s was the most productive phase of van der Ast’s career and, by good fortune, it is also the best documented period of his activity.  During these years the artist obliged later historians by quite often dating his paintings, making it possible to track his stylistic evolution fairly closely.  After 1628, however, he inexplicably abandoned the practice of dating his works altogether.  Thus, the chronology of his later oeuvre can only be determined in somewhat general terms. 

Whereas Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder painted still lifes of fruit only occasionally, van der Ast eagerly adopted the theme from the outset of his career and made it one of his favourites.  Among his earliest known paintings is a Still Life of Fruit in a Kraak Porcelain Dish, dated 1617, in the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire[ii], which depicts a blue and white porcelain bowl of fruit, with shells, fruit and flowers scattered across a ledge.  There followed in the 1620s many still lifes featuring baskets or bowls of fruit, sometimes in combination with vases of flowers, and often with the addition of exotic seashells, insects, lizards, parrots, or even a small monkey. 

The overall handling of this still life is characteristic of van der Ast’s work from the years around the mid-1620s.  In contrast to his teacher’s crisp technique and brilliant colours, van der Ast’s contours are softer and his palette more muted.  Subtle gradations of light and shade give depth and volume to the individual elements that emerge from a uniformly dark background.  Also typical is the densely compact arrangement, with very little space between and around the various elements.  Van der Ast has heightened the sense of immediacy here by bringing his forms close to the picture plane and rendering the little chips in the stone, and the flowers that project over the front of the ledge in a trompe l’oeil-like manner.  The artist’s signature, painted in an illusionistic manner, as if incised into the stone, is another pleasing visual conceit that the artist employed quite often around this time[iii].  Later, van der Ast developed looser compositions with lighter backgrounds. 

Van der Ast quickly attracted a following among prominent collections.  As early as 1632, two of his small still-life paintings were listed as “a basket with fruit and a basket with flowers”, in the inventory of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, and his wife Amalia van Solms.  That his reputation spread beyond the places where he lived and worked is also attested by the inclusion of his name in a register, Huidendaegse Schilders (Contemporary Painters) compiled by the Amsterdam doctor and art lover Jan Sysmus between 1669 and 1679, in which his art is succinctly described with the words: “In flowers, shells and lizards, beautiful”[iv]. 

BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST

Balthasar van der Ast was born in Middelburg around 1593 or 1594.  After the death of his father Hans van der Ast, a wealthy merchant, in 1609, he went to live with his sister, Maria, who was married to the flower painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder.  Van der Ast became his pupil and moved with the Bosschaert family first to Bergen-op-Zoom, where they are recorded in 1615, and then to Utrecht in the following year.  He did not join the painters’ guild in Utrecht until 1619, two years later than his earliest known dated paintings of 1617.  In Utrecht, van der Ast became friendly with Roelandt Savery, who had joined the guild at the same time, and he was reportedly among the artists who visited Savery almost daily at his home on the Boterstraat[v]. In May 1632, van der Ast moved to Delft, where he joined the Guild of Saint Luke on 22 June.  In 1633, he married Margrieta Jans van Bueren and took out citizenship.  The couple had two daughters.  A codicil of 1650 records that the family lived on the east side of the Oude Delft, Delft’s main canal street[vi].  Van der Ast remained in Delft until his death in December 1657.  He was buried in the Oude Kerk.  His pupils may have included Bosschaert’s sons Ambrosius the Younger (1609-1645), Johannes (c. 1610/11-1628 or later), and Abraham (1612/13-1643), as well as Johannes Buers (d. after 1641) and Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1683/84).