Abraham van Beyeren

Abraham van Beyeren is best known for the pronkstilleven, the showpiece still life: tables heaped with lobsters, fruit, gilded cups, silver platters, porcelain and half-drunk glasses of wine, often with a crumpled white cloth hanging over the edge. His canvases were large for the genre, some a metre high, and his brushwork is looser and warmer than in most Dutch still lifes.

He was born in The Hague around 1620 and moved often, working in Leiden, Delft, Amsterdam, Alkmaar and Gouda before settling in Overschie near Rotterdam, where he died in 1690. He began with seascapes and fish pieces before turning to the luxurious banquet pictures that made his name. He signed with the monogram AVB but seldom dated his work. Examples hang in the Rijksmuseum, the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum.

In a piece like Large Still Life with Lobster, study the reflections in the silver.