Joris van Son (Antwerp 1623 - 1667), A 'Pronk' still life of fruits in a basket together with a gilt goblet, wine glass, a ham, a pie, orange, lemon and a crab, all upon a table draped with blue and white cloths. Estimate   50,000 — 70,000  GBP.  Lot. Sold 87,500 GBP. Photo Sotheby's

signed lower left: J.VAN.SON.f., oil on canvas, in a carved and gilt wood frame, 57.5 by 84 cm.; 22 5/8  by 33 in.

Provenance: Captain C.P. B. Wood, Culmington Manor, Shropshire;
By whom sold London, Christie's, 15 December 1913, lot 20 (with pendant) for £115. 10s. to Tooth;
With H.M. Clark, London;
Wilhelm Caspar Escher (1859–1929), Zurich, by whom acquired from the above before August 1919 for £200;
Thence by descent.

Rxhibition: Utrecht, Centraal Museum, Verborgen. Nederlandse en Vlamse schilderijn uit de 16de en 17de eeuw uit de collective W.C. Escher, 2002, no. 10

Bibliography: R.E.O. Ekkart in Verborgen. Nederlandse en Vlamse schilderijn uit de 16de en 17de eeuw uit de collective W.C. Escher, exhibition catalogue, Utrecht, Centraal Museum, 2002, pp. 67–69, 119, no. 10.

Note: When it was sold at auction in 1913, this painting was sold with a pendant, but this has since remained untraced. Van Son was made a Master in the Antwerp Painters' Guild in 1643–44, when he was only twenty years old, and he died relatively young when still only forty-three. Although his teacher is not recorded, his mature still lifes betray the strong influence of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, who had been a resident of the city since 1632. It is not easy to date Van Son's works precisely, but this canvas is probably a work from the 1650s. The motifs of the basket of fruit anchoring the composition to one side and the central drape of white cloth in the centre, are paralleled in a number of other paintings, such as that sold Monaco, Sotheby's, 17 June 1988, lot 869 and later with Van Haeften in London, and that sold London, Christie's, 9 July 1993, lot 4, in which the elements of the ham and the pie also recur.

Sotheby's. Old Master & British Paintings Day Sale, Londres, 09 juil. 2015