Jan Treck

Jan Jansz. Treck spent his life within a few streets of Amsterdam and within a few feet of another painter's style. Born around 1606, he was trained as a teenager by Jan den Uyl, a still-life painter who had married Treck's sister, a brother-in-law and a master at once.

The lesson took almost too well. Treck's still lifes, sober arrangements of pewter, glass and a rumpled cloth in pale silvery tones, sit so close to Den Uyl's that specialists struggle to tell the two hands apart. One picture has survived carrying both their signatures, which suggests that after Den Uyl died in 1640 Treck finished paintings his teacher had left unfinished.

His own signed and dated works begin around 1641, built on tall vertical formats with large, quiet backgrounds and a few objects set out at generous scale. He worked in Amsterdam until his death in 1652.