Five Shells on a Slab of Stone

Adriaen Coorte painted some of the smallest and quietest still lifes of the Dutch Golden Age. A few asparagus spears, a handful of strawberries, three medlars or five shells sit on a plain stone ledge against a dark background, lit from one side. There is almost nothing else in the picture, and that is the point. He worked in Middelburg in Zeeland, where he was active from the 1680s until at least 1707. He may have trained in Amsterdam with Melchior d’Hondecoeter, but his own work looks nothing like that painter’s large bird pictures. He was little known in his own day, and his reputation was only rebuilt in the twentieth century. The Mauritshuis in The Hague has his Still Life with Wild Strawberries. In his Still Life with Asparagus, look at how each spear is modelled with light, and how much space he leaves around the objects.