Adriaen Van Der Cabel (rijswijk, 1630 Or 1631 - Lyon, 16 June 1705), Still Life With Plums

Adriaen van der Cabel (Rijswijk, 1630 or 1631 - Lyon, 16 June 1705)

Still life with plum and apricot baskets

Oil on canvas, cm 72 x 96

With frame, cm 91 x 117

Critical Profile Prof. Alberto Crispo

Bibliography: A. Crispo, Adriaen van der Cabel painter of still life between the Netherlands, Rome and France, Parma per l'Arte, XXVIII, 2022. pp. 189 - 218

The present composition has been linked to the still little known production of still lifes by the painter Adriaen van der Cabel, famous mainly for his harbour views and genre scenes. This piece of Still Life instead testifies to the painter’s naturamortist skills that manages to build an orderly scene in which the absolute protagonists are the baskets full of fish and plums. The first floor is then populated by other splendid pictorial pieces: to the perfectly cut lemon is opposed the pomegranate with its colored grains and the almonds still wrapped in the flesh. In the background left in the penumbra are represented grapes and figs. Van der Cabel’s still lifes are characterized by the consistent presence of fruit baskets, as well as the addition of the open pomegranate and fish and plums, fruits favorite by the painter.

Born and raised in Rijswijk, near The Hague, Cabel began his training under the guidance of Jan van Goyen. His early career took him to Paris in 1655 and Lyon (ca 1655-58) where he settled at a young age and spent much of his life. However, his artistic trajectory was marked by a crucial period in Rome (1659-1666), a stay that enriched his vision and style Van der Cabel, became one of the usual collaborators of Codazzi in the Roman years as shown by an architecture preserved at the Uffizi.