Still-life with Fishes

Van Beyeren, the master of banquet tables, also painted flower, fruit, and fish pieces. The earliest of the last named, dated 1649, predates van Beyeren’s earliest pronkstilleven, a fact that supports the claim that the fish painter Pieter de Putter (c. 1600-59) was his teacher.

Van Beyeren’s fish pieces seldom attract as much attention as his sumptuous banquet tables. Most people would rather study a picture of an exquisitely laid table than one of a mess of fish. But van Beyeren’s celebrations of the abundance of the sea are as remarkable as his festive dinner tables. In them he sometimes includes a glimpse of a beach in the background. The fish and crustacea he painted always look wet - they appear to have been just taken from the water - and the mother-of pearl greys of his creatures of the sea, their browns, silvers, and white are as delicate and finely felt as the colour accords in his more showy pieces.