JACOB VAN DER KERCKHOVEN known as GIACOMO DA CASTELLO (Antwerp, 1637 - Venice, 1712) Still Life with Doves Oil on canvas, 76.5X61.5 cm Provenance: London, Christie's, 7 July 1995, lot 378 (as Felice Boselli's circle) Cologne, Lempertz, 17 May 2014, lot 1218 (as Jacob Van Der Kerckhoven) Milan, Finarte, 10 November 2015, lot 11 (as Jacob Van Der Kerckhoven) A pupil of Jan Fyt in Antwerp, a celebrated still life painter and master of David de Koninck and Pieter Boel, Jacob Van De Kerckhoven moved to Venice before 1663, where his surname was Italianised into Giacomo da Castello and where Giovanni Agostino Cassana trained. The canvas under examination displays the ingredients for a rich banquet, carefully described and distributed on a marble surface, while the fast and dense brushstrokes offer a generous descriptive and tactile impression. Drawing on the Flemish lesson, the artist enjoyed considerable success and the 17th-18th century inventories of Venetian collections mention many of his paintings. Also documenting this critical appreciation are his possible collaborations with important figure painters, as can be seen in Guido Cagnacci's painting of a woman beating two dogs in the Borromeo collection (Cf. D. Benati, in Guido Cagnacci, exhibition catalogue edited by D. Benati and M. Bona Castellotti, Milan 1993, pp. 152-155 no. 36). The comparison with that painting is compelling in order to validate the attribution of our painting as well, as the same shaggy definition of the boar appears in it, which was a constant inferred by Fyt, as does the Natura morta con cacciagione, ortaggi e testa di cinghiale (Still Life with Game, Vegetables and Boar's Head), preserved in Argory's Dungannon residence in Northern Ireland, which demonstrates how still life specialists often used studies from life to draw upon. The work is accompanied by a critical file by Alberto Cottino. Reference bibliography: E. Safarik, La natura morta nel Veneto, in La natura morta in Italia, edited by F. Porzio and F. Zeri, I, Milan 1989, I, fig. 422 F. Paliaga, in Fasto e rigore. La natura morta nell'Italia Settentrionale dal XVI al XVIII secolo, exhibition catalogue edited by G. Godi, Milan 2000, pp. 242-246, nn. 98-101