His work shows a strong influence of Jan Davidszoon de Heem, a Dutch still life painter who was active in Antwerp from the mid-1630s.

[7] Van Son suddenly took ill in May 1667 and died prematurely at the age of 44, in his native city of Antwerp, where he was buried on 25 June 1667.

[8] His still lifes are animated by branches of cherries or raspberries, which endow the composition with a great lightness.

Paintings in this genre typically show a flower or, less frequently, fruit garland around a devotional image or portrait.

[9] Not all of van Son's collaborators on his garland paintings have been identified but they are known to have included Erasmus Quellinus II, Pieter Boel, Frans Wouters, Gysbrecht Thys and Jan den Duyts.

His flower garlands reveal the influence of Daniel Seghers, although conceptually his work is closer to that of Jan Davidsz de Heem who is presumed by some art historians to have been his master.

Van Son was particularly skilled in the rendering of the physical qualities of the skin of fruits, as is evident in the hairiness of the peaches in his compositions.

[6] An example of a devotional garland painting is The Virgin with the Child inside a festoon of fruit (Prado Museum).

This composition contains the typical symbols present in vanitas paintings: a skull, a burning candle and an hourglass.

[18][19][20] A large portion of his output consists of pronkstillevens, the sumptuous still lifes that were popular in Flanders and the Dutch Republic from the 1640s.

A representative example in this genre is the Pronk still life with overturned silver ewer (Liechtenstein Museum).

[21] From the late 1650s van Son painted a number of more modest still lifes in which the composition and colouring was rather restrained.

These more moderate still lifes are not believed to reference the vanitas theme but rather to celebrate the varied gifts of nature.