Tobias Stranover was born in Sibiu, the wine-growing capital of central Romania, situated in the northern foothills of the Transylvanian Alps. He traveled to Hamburg and Dresden and finally settled in England, where he married Elizabeth Bogdani, the daughter of the painter Jakob Bogdani.

Bogdani, who had arrived in England in 1684, studied many exotic species of bird in Admiral George Churchill's aviary at Windsor, as well as from stuffed models in his own studio. Repeated use of the same fruits and bird species in the two artists' pictures suggests close collaboration on a number of occasions, or perhaps even a shared studio. Bogdani left all his bird models, with his house and contents at Finchley, to Stran...