Adriaen Coorte

They form an unmistakable signature in the work of his students, and Coorte is no exception: From 1683 he seems to have returned to Middelburg, where he set up a workshop and signed his small, carefully balanced minimalist still lifes.

About 80 signed works by him have been catalogued, and nearly all of them follow the same pattern; small arrangements of fruits, vegetables, or shells on a stone slab, lit from above, with the dark background typical of still lifes earlier in the century.

[3] Bol arranged an exhibition of 35 examples of Coorte's work in 1958 at the Dordrechts Museum, which became a sensation in the Netherlands, with the poets Hans Faverey and Ed Leeflang both being inspired by the paintings.

Testifying to Coorte's recent popularity is the December 1st, 2009 auction of two of his new-found paintings, which each sold for more than ten times the estimated price.

A new price record for the artist was set at the 3 December 2014 Sotheby's auction when a painting called Three peaches on a stone ledge with a red admiral butterfly sold for £3,444,500.