A forest floor still life with a Grand Surprise (Nymphalis antiopa), a Large Tortoiseshell (Nymphalis polychloros), a Small White (Pieris rapae), a Peacock (Inachis io), and other butterflies and a lizard

Marseus van Schrieck is best known for his paintings of forest soils with flora and fauna. In Arnold Houbraken's biography of him, he mentions that van Schrieck joined the Bentvueghels in Rome and was called Snuffelaer, or 'sniffer', because he was always smelling strange lizards and snakes. Houbraken recorded that the painter's wife, who was still alive when Houbraken wrote the book, said that Otto kept snakes and lizards in a shed at the back of his house, and also on a piece of land outside the city that was especially walled in for this purpose.
Many of Van Schrieck's paintings are dark studies of plants, often with lizards at the base and insects on the leaves and branches, of which the present lot is a fine example.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution based on a photograph (verbal communication, 24 March 2013).