Abraham Brueghel

Abraham Brueghel came from a family of painters - he was the son of the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Younger - and although born in Antwerp in 1631, he worked for much of his life in Italy.  He specialised as a still-life painter in Rome, before moving to Naples, and monopolised that market from the mid to late 1660's onwards.  Brueghel reveals his Northern spirit in his eagerness to often use elements of archaeological character such as the sculpted vase in this composition. The painting also reveals another side to his character and working methods.  According to De Dominici, Brueghel's biographer, his sumptuous still-life arrangements of fruit and flowers were arranged very spontaneously: "He took up a large watermelon, let it fall to the ground, and just as it was all smashed through that accident, he painted it".
G. and U. Bocchi (see Literature) date the painting to Brueghel's Roman period, comparing the picture to the fully signed still life sold in these Rooms, 12 December 1984, lot 82, and noting 'the arrangement of the still life on a rocky ledge and in the morphology of its very elements, repeating models of Michelangelo del Campidoglio'. The picture has indeed been attributed to Campidoglio in the past, as witnessed by the plaque on the frame and the inscription on the verso.