Jan van Kessel is a Flemish painter, son of the painter Hieronymus van Kessel, grandson of Jan Bruegel the Elder, nephew of both Jan Bruegel the Younger and David Teniers the Younger. He began his apprenticeship with Simon de Vos in 1634. He spent his entire career in Antwerp. Jan van Kessel, beyond the traditional Flemish still life which he also practiced in flower compositions or ceremonial buffets, directed his painting between scientific study, zoological and botanical, and work of art. Abandoning the religious symbolic dimension lent to natural beings, he described them with great realism, even reproducing the shadows of insects or shells on their white backgrounds, using a technique of extreme precision, imposed by the generally small dimensions of his works, often made on copper.