Although Alexander Adriaenssen cannot be regarded as a “super specialist” in fish still lifes since he also represented fruit, flowers and game, he did paint more images of fish than his Antwerp counterparts. A considerable proportion of the more than two hundred works currently attributed to him are either pure fish pieces or still lifes where he combined fish with other subjects. Born at Antwerp, Adriaenssen entered the guild there in 1610 as a “watercolor painter”, a designation which may suggest that he was mostly involved in painting temporary decorations for pageants and other festive occasions. His earliest still lifes date only to 1631. Despite the low esteem that fish still life was held in, and the usually low prices that they achieved, the small Prado panel entered the distinguished collection of the Spanish nobleman, the Marquis of Léganes, before 1652, along with five other still lifes by Adriaenssen. Meijer has surmised that the higher quality of the painting, relative to the rest of his oeuvre, may indicate that it was intended for export to Spain. Adriaenssen organizes his fish on a makeshift bench, probably a fish seller´s stall. He depicts a range of sea and freshwater fish as well as a barrel of oysters. With limited means and colour, he manages to capture convincingly the glistening silves scales and moist bodies of the more prominent haddock, carp, and bull rout. Fish could be interpreted in a variety of emblematic ways in the seventeenth century, from symbols of the element water and the phlegmatic temperament, to examples of God´s bounty, to sources of economic pride. Certain types of fish and shellfish, such as herring, oysters and mussels, had erotic connotations. The cat in Adriaenssen´s painting, which is waiting to pounce and consume some of the display, may indicate the need for vigilance. Whether any of these meanings attach to Adriaenssen´s more prosaic depiction is uncertain (Texto extractado de Loughman. John, In the presence of things: four centuries of European still-life painting, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2010, p. 172).

In the presence of things: four centuries of European still-life painting, Lisbon, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2010, p.172-173