A Still-Life with Peaches and Grapes on a Ledge with a Parrot perched above

TOBIAS STRANOVER

Active 1684-c.1731

Hungarian School

A Still-Life with Peaches and Grapes on a Ledge with a Parrot perched above

Oil on Panel

33.5 x 31 cms

13 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches

Tobias Stranover was one of the leading emigré decorative painters working in England in the early part of the eighteenth century. Together with Jacob Bogdani, he was one of the major artists specialising in the painting of exotic birds and wild

His work brought a lightness and exoticism to English still-life and animal paintings which were missing in the early English works of Marmaduke Craddock and Francis Barlow. Stranover was born in Sibu, now in Czechoslovakia, and travelled to England, Hamburg and Dresden. Although examples of his work can be found in the museums of Hamburg, Dresden and Budapest, his work is most commonly found in old English collections.

His extensive knowledge of the different fruits and birds of the world can be seen in his paintings and his later works become more detailed and much fuller. He is last recorded in 1731, when he was paid 10 gns. for a fowl piece with a peacock in it (Lord Fitzwalters accounts, now in the Hampshire Record Office).

Stranover married Jacob Bogdani's daughter and it is thought that both artists collaborated occasionally.