Frans Snyders was a Flemish artist, born in the city of Antwerp, now in modern Belgium.  He specialised in still-life paintings of fruit and game, occasionally working in collaboration with other artists.

Around 1615 Sydners was commissioned to paint a group of paintings known as The Four Markets – which now hand in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.  Snyders’ Fruit Stall resembles the Harris’s closely and, for many years, our picture was thought to be a copy.  However, the differences are significant enough for it now to be considered an independent work by an artist influenced by Snyders, possibly even trained within his workshop.  It certainly dates from well after 1615, the clothing of the two women suggesting the 1640s.

The prominence of the building on the right (which is most likelt a guild hall for butchers) suggests that this painting may have been commissioned for that building.