page_title: Jacob van Hulsdonck
section_title: General
hierarchical_section_title: Jacob van Hulsdonck / Work / General
context_page_description: Jacob van Hulsdonck or Jan van Hulsdonck, was a Flemish painter who played a role in the early development of the genre of still lifes of fruit, banquets and flowers.
context_section_description: Jacob van Hulsdonck was a still life painter of banquet style pieces, fruit bowls and flowers.  Roughly 100 paintings are currently attributed to him. The meticulous handling of detail in his work likely explains his relatively low output.  More than half of his paintings are signed with his characteristic full signature in capitals while some are signed with a monogram only.
  Because he only left one dated work, the Breakfast piece with a fish, ham and cherries of 1614 (Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle) it is difficult to establish a chronology of his works. Panel makers' marks are of little help in dating his work because of his preference for panels prepared with gesso on the reverse, which makes the wood more stable and less susceptible to warping.  It is believed that his earliest still lifes are the ones in which the edge of the table is close to the bottom of the picture and the table is depicted from a rather elevated viewpoint. In these early works, the table is partly covered with a white cloth.  In his later works he abandoned some of the rigidity of these early works by lowering the viewpoint, leaving some space under the table and including one side of the table in the composition.  His palette is also believed to have evolved over the years and his later works have brighter colours and less dark backgrounds. His later still lifes are set out on plain wooden tables.  The grain of the wood is typically depicted in great detail. Occasionally these tables are partly covered with a dark (greyish- or greenish-black) cloth.
  Although he must have been familiar with the work of the Bosschaert studio, his work shows more affinity with the work of Osias Beert and even Hieronymous Francken II, two still life artists active in early 17th century Antwerp.  It is even possible that van Hulsdonck worked in their circle before becoming a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in 1608.  His flower pieces show the influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder.
  Whereas 17th-century still lifes are usually believed to convey a hidden ‘message’, often related to the vanitas motif of the transience of all things, in van Hulsdonck’s works this seems to have been largely absent. Van Hulsdonck did, however, often include a  bluebottle as an eye-catching motif and the only living creature in his still lifes.  Flies are often regarded as a symbol of the shortness of life.
caption: Still life with lemons, oranges and a pomegranate
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