Still Life with Flowers, Fruit, a Great Tit and a Mouse

Herman Henstenburg earned his living baking pies, the takeaway meal of the period. He painted his delightful watercolours of flowers, fruit and insects purely for pleasure. Henstenburg developed a special kind of watercolour paint that was so bright and powerful, a contemporary remarked that it rivalled oil paint. His superb still lifes were famous among collectors in his own day, and far beyond his hometown of Hoorn.