Master of the Stirling-Maxwell Collection

This composition, with the still life elements individually displayed and dramatically lit in an otherwise bare niche, is directly inspired by the example of Juan Sánchez Cótan (1560-1627). It has consequently been presumed that the Master of the Stirling-Maxwell Collection was working within Cótan's orbit, probably between Madrid and Toledo.

The identity of the Master, whose eponymous work (which includes a fish identical to the one in the present painting) was that in the collection of the Scottish nobleman and historian of Spanish art, William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-78),¹ has been associated variously with the Spanish painters Alonso de Escobar (active circa 1602-37) and Alejandro de Loarte (1590/1600-26), and the Italian artist Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli (1551-1640), but never to any of these beyond doubt.

¹ https://matthiesengallery.com/work_of_art/still-life-in-a-casement-with-a-basket-of-pears-and-apples-a-haddock-vine-stem-and-a-branch-of-peaches