Jan van Kessel the Younger was a Flemish Baroque painter born in Antwerp in 1654 into one of the city's leading artistic families. He was the son of the painter Ferdinand van Kessel and the grandson of Jan van Kessel the Elder, whose detailed still lifes and natural history paintings brought international acclaim to the family. Trained by his father, Jan became a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1675. He worked across a range of genres, including portraits, religious subjects, history paintings, and decorative compositions. In the 1680s he moved to Madrid, where he became a court painter to King Charles II of Spain. His work combined the rich colour and lively composition of the Flemish Baroque tradition with the refined elegance favoured by the Spanish court. Van Kessel the Younger remained active in Madrid until his death in 1708. Van Kessel’s work has been offered at auction multiple times, the record price being 109,800 euros for Still Life with Vegetables (c.1875) sold at Lempertz, Cologne in November 2013.