Osias Beert

Who was Osias Beert?

Osias Beert was a Flemish Baroque painter who specialized in flower and "breakfast"-type still lifes. He joined the city's Guild of St. Luke in 1608, and trained Frans van der Borch, Frans IJkens, Paulus Pontius and Jan Willemssen. Beerts's floral paintings, often showing a vase of flowers in a shallow niche, are similar to the works of Ambrosius Bosschaert. His breakfast pieces, frequently known by their Dutch name ontbijtjes, are seen from a high angle with forced perspective, as was common in both Flemish and Dutch still life painting in the early years of the seventeenth century. He might have also collaborated with Peter Paul Rubens.