Lizard and Shells

Van der Ast's most singular specialty was the lizard and shell composition — a purely natural-history subject that eschewed flowers entirely to focus on reptile and marine specimens. The Musée de l'Hôtel Sandelin in Saint-Omer, Artois, holds this late panel, which dates to 1657, making it possibly one of Van der Ast's last works (he died around 1657). The lizard as a still life subject appears in Flemish painting from the sixteenth century onward, often placed among flowers as a creature of ambiguous symbolism — sometimes representing vigilance or quick intellect, sometimes the dangerous and transient. Combined exclusively with shells on a bare stone ledge, with no flowers or fruit to soften the scene, Van der Ast achieves a concentrated natural-history display of almost scientific austerity. The Hôtel Sandelin collection preserves decorative arts and paintings with a regional French character, and this work likely entered Artois through the complex of Dutch and Flemish trade and collecting networks that connected the Spanish Netherlands to northern France.

The lizard's scaled skin requires a finely-stippled technique — tiny marks building up to suggest individual scales without painting each one explicitly. Shell forms use the same spiral-geometry precision Van der Ast applied throughout his career, with ribbing and nacre handled through linear marks and glaze layering. The bare stone ledge with no floral context gives the composition an unusually austere, scientific character.