FLEMISH PAINTER OF THE 18TH CENTURY Still life with fruit, vegetables, a monkey, a parrot and a squirrel Oil on canvas, 93.5X120 cm Provenance: Rome, private collection The canvas under consideration can reasonably be recognised as the one previously in Munich in the Weinmuller Gallery (25-26 October 1968, lot 979) which, inexplicably, was presented as the work of an Italian master of the 18th century. Nevertheless, in the RKD archives it is acknowledged to be clearly related to the works of Frans Snyders, of which we know of two drafts in the Louvre Museum and the State Gallery in Stuttgart (cf. S. Koslow, Snyders, Antwerp 1995, p. 112, figs. 130-131). Having said this, the quality of the painting in question must be acknowledged for the skill of the representation, the rich range of forms, colours and textures; not to mention the naturalistic and descriptive rendering, worthy of the best Flemish tradition. In this regard, it must be remembered that Snyders was a pupil of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and continued his studies with Hendrick van Balen (Antwerp, 1575-1632), later collaborating with Pietro Paolo Rubens and sharing a fraternal friendship with Anton van Dyck, establishing himself as the artist of reference for the still life genre.