Joris van Son was born in Antwerp where he was accepted in 1643 as a member of the guild of St. Luke and where he worked until his death in 1667. Van Son’s teacher is not recorded but he was clearly influenced by Jan Dz. de Heem, under whom he may have trained in Antwerp in the early 1640s.

A highly skilled painter of still lifes, Joris van Son mainly depicted fruit, but he also would include other victuals and flowers in his compositions. A substantial part of van Son’s known oeuvre consists of cartouche still lifes; paintings in which a central image – often painted in by another artist – is surrounded by garlands or festoons of fruit and/or flowers. Often such paintings were produced f...