Jan van Kessel the Younger - A Family in the Garden [1679]

Jan van Kessel the Younger - A Family in the Garden [1679], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jan van Kessel II (Antwerp, 1612 - Antwerp, 1679) counted his uncle Jan Brueghel the Younger among his teachers. He joined the Antwerp painters' guild in 1645 and specialised in small-scale pictures of subjects gleaned from the natural world such as floral still lifes and allegorical series showing animal kingdoms, the four elements, the senses, or the parts of the world. Obsessed with picturesque detail, van Kessel worked from nature and used illustrated scientific texts as sources for filling his pictures with objects represented with almost scientific accuracy. 

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 127 x 167 cm]