Harmen Steenwijck was born in Delft in 1612, but trained with his uncle, the portraitist and still-life painter David Bailly (1584-1657), in Leiden. He returned to Delft in 1636, where he joined the Guild of St. Luke. He specialised in still lifes of tables piled with fruit, fish, game and simple kitchen ware. His other principal subject was vanitas still lifes. He is decidedly less well-known than contemporaries of the period, perhaps because his output was relatively small. And yet, he is a distrinctive handler of light. Here, Steenwijck has depicted the corner of a stone ledge on which a fish, three quinces, and a stoneware jug have been arranged. A beam of light falls from the upper left, enveloping everything in a soft, silvery light. The artist has taken great care with the surface textures of his chosen objects – the glazed surface of the earthenware vessel, the glistening scales of the fish, and the chipped stone of the ledge are all rendered with a high degree of realism – – while at the same time creating an harmonious unity by means of a carefully controlled palette of warm greys, browns and olive green, enlivened with tints of lemony-yellow. Though diminutive, this work has all the hallmarks of Steenwijck’s style. The fish, quinces and earthenware jar all belong to his favored motifs. Likewise, the use of diagonals and directional lighting are entirely typical. Indeed, more often than not, he grouped his objects in a strictly triangular arrangement and lit them with diagonal shafts of light that play across the back wall. It was also his practice often to work on an intimate scale, representing his objects considerably smaller than natural size
