Still-Life with Fish on a Table

In this still-life, we see on a stone table both salt and fresh water fish, oysters, mussels and a North Sea lobster. Most striking is a sizable turbot with head and tail tied together with a thread to keep it fresh.

Painting fish in a lifelike manner was an exceptional challenge for a painter. Depicting the shiny skin in a convincing manner was not simple. Furthermore fish have a limited range of colours, so that an artist must draw on all his skill in composition, and the treatment of light and materials if he is to make his painting interesting.