Floris van Schooten

Essay:

Floris van Schooten was the son of Gerrit Schooten and is first recorded in Haarlem in 1605. He married in 1612 to Rycklant Bol van Zanen and is recorded as head of the Guild in 1639 and 1640. He remained in Haarlem his entire life.

Van Schooten was an adaptable painter, painting market scenes in the tradition of Pieter Aertsen, still lives of fruit, sweets and cheeses, like those of Floris van Dijk and Pieter Claesz, and later fruit still lives close to Roelof Koets. Interestingly there is one recorded collaboration between himself and Pieter Claesz. Few of his works are dated and so a coherent analysis of his stylistic development is difficult, but he was a prolific painter and recent research on the artist has added more work to his oeuvre.

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The Monochrome Banketje (monochrome banquet picture) is a particular type of Dutch still life painting of the 17th century. These paintings were primarily created in Haarlem where van Schooten spent most of his life. The Monochrome Banketjes do not show sumptuous feasts, but modest meals. A key feature of these paintings is that they have reduced tonal variation in favour of a limited, nuanced palette where textures are depicted in as life-like way as possible.

The food arranged on the table are typical of a 'breakfast piece' by van Schooten. On display are two halves of a large cheese, a pewter plate of oysters, a roemer perhaps containing white wine, a twist of peppercorns, bread, butter, salt and biscuits.

Provenance:

The Wodehouse, Wombourne, Staffordshire