Lot 16: Pieter de Putter (circa 1605-1659)

Pike, rudd and perch with a scoop-net, an eel-dish and a bucket on a stone ledge signed PDUTTER f. (PD linked) lower centre oil on canvas 58.4 x 78 cm PROVENANCE Anon. Sale, Sotheby's Amsterdam, 12 November 1996, lot 98, ill. NOTES De Putter was born in The Hague, where he specialised in still lifes of fish; he is believed to have been the teacher of Abraham van Beyeren. With their monochrome palette, enhanced by the silvers and whites of the glistening scales, this and the preceding lot are characteristic works of the artist, clearly influenced by the Haarlem painters of banketjes. Unlike most of his contemporaries, De Putter, as noted by Drs C.H. Breedveld ( De oorsprong van het visstilleven in de Nederlanden van de 17e eeuw, 1995, unpublished doctoral thesis), did not depict fish of the types normally found at daily markets: for example pike, as seen in the present picture, was difficult to clean and therefore not usually sold as food. De Putter instead painted fish as game, not food - a difference highlighted by his depiction of nets and other equipment. His work has therefore been regarded as belonging to the same tradition as hunting still lifes and other game pieces, with which they have often been hung as pendants. We are grateful to Drs C.H. Breedveld for her assistance in cataloguing these lots.