Greengrocer

Adriaen Van Utrecht is one of Antwerp’s most renowned still life painters. Frans Snyders (1579-1657) affected his late artistic production, as its main pictorial themes can surely prove.

The way he painted vegetables for instance, finely but simply at the same time, allows us to compare the picture we’re analysing to Still life of Vegetables painting at Milan Modern Art Gallery (Galleria d’Arte Moderna GAM). For further information, please see B. W. Mejer (show curated by), Fiamminghi e Olandesi. Dipinti dalle collezioni lombarde, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo Reale Milano, 2002, pp. 92-93, n. 46.

Because of the dark curtain on the right and the cloudy sky on the left, we can compare the compositional structure of Van Utrecht’s painting to the Greengrocer picture at Pommersfelden Schonbrunn Castle (M. Gregori, Paragone 117, 1959, fig. 38).

Van Utrecht worked with several artists. He used to charge them with realising the characters of his artworks, just like those of the painting we’re analysing. Thomas Willeboirts, Jacob Jordaens and Erasmus Quellinus are some of the most renowned.