Dutch painter. Together with his Haarlem contemporaries Floris van Dijck, Nicolaes Gillis, and Floris van Schooten, he was one of the earliest Dutch still-life painters.
Koets collaborated on a number of still-life paintings with Claesz, particularly large-scale banquet pieces. In general, Koets painted the fruit pieces, while Claesz executed the rest of the compositions.
This still-life is composed of fruit with grapes, raisins, and nuts. It is signed and dated lower left: “R. Koets/Ao. 1645.” Roelof Koets left behind a small oeuvre, which comprises only some twenty pictures. Signed works by him are rare. Occasionally, Koets painted grapes and fruit in the banquet still-lifes of his colleague, Pieter Claesz.
The painting shows a still-life of a fish, bread, a peeled lemon, grapes in a basket, a salt and a roemer, all on a draped table.
The painting depicts a sumptuous tabletop still-life with gilded covered cup, jug lying on its side, tazza, large silver tray with glasses, fruit and vine foliage.
This canvas was painted in collaboration between Roelof Koets Pieter Claesz.; Koets executed the right-hand side of the painting with the fruit and vine foliage. It is monogrammed “PC” only by Claesz.
This painting is a result of the collaboration between Pieter Claesz. and Roelof Koets. Both painters signed the canvas. Koets painted the fruits and Claesz. the Roemers. The collaboration of two or more artists, specialists in different subject categories, were common in seventeenth-century Flanders. In Holland, such collaborations were less frequent, although it did occur. In Dutch still-life the joining forces of Pieter Claesz. and his fellow-townsman in Haarlem, Roelof Koets is an example that stands out.
The two painters were friends, living in Haarlem. They testified several times together as witnesses in lawsuits. They produced ten collaborative paintings, dating between 1644 and 1653. In these paintings Koets’s hand can easily be distinguished: his sidelong lighting is more dramatic and more playful than that of Pieter Claesz., his foliage comes out stronger against a darker background, his oblong grapes are build up out of thin transparent layers.
This still-life is one of Roelof Koets’s mature works which were influenced by one of the major 17th century Dutch still-life painters, Pieter Claesz. Koets and Claesz. were friends and regularly worked together on the same still-life paintings of pronk (‘display’) and banquet still-lifes; Koets then painted the fruits, especially grapes, and the vine.
