How you can use this image

This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).

Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.

The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.

Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.

Buy a print or image licence

You can purchase this reproduction

If you have any products in your basket we recommend that you complete your purchase from Art UK before you leave our site to avoid losing your purchases.

Order a print

Notes

Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.

Jan van Kessel was a versatile painter of still life in Antwerp, best known for his small paintings on copper on which he painted insects, shells and flowers similar to the works in Oxford. Together with 'A Cockchafer, Beetle, Woodlice and other Insects, with a Sprig of Auricula'; 'Three Butterflies, a Beetle and other Insects, with a Cutting of Ragwort' and 'A Dragon-fly, two Moths, a Spider and some Beetles, with wild Strawberries'; this little picture may have formed part of a larger set of painted fronts for small drawers in a cabinet. As his early work of this kind tends to be more meticulous than his later work and as these works are very neatly finished, they may date from the early 1650s when he seems to have begun painting panels of this type.

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

Oxford

Title

Various Spiders and Caterpillars, with a Sprig of Gooseberry

Date

early 1650s

Medium

oil on copper

Measurements

H 9 x W 13 cm

Accession number

WA1940.2.41

Acquisition method

Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, 1939

Work type

Painting

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

Beaumont Street, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX1 2PH England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.

View venue

All creatures great and small: inspecting insects in art
Anita Sethi

Various Spiders and Caterpillars, with a Sprig of Gooseberry

Jan van Kessel the elder (1626–1679)

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

How you can use this image

Buy a print or image licence

Notes

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology