Some objects from the painting have been traced. One shell cup is in Norwich Castle Museum; the silver-gilt flagon is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The English or Dutch mother-of-pearl flask is in a London private collection. The remaining ten objects are Dutch, Flemish or German, three of which are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Prinsenhof Museum, Delft and a New York private collection. We aim to display these alongside similar magnificent artefacts equivalent to those described on surviving Paston inventories. These include vessels of pearl, shell, crystal, ivory, amber and agate, as well as paintings, sculpture and furnishings which could once have been in their possession.

We will also explore the identity of the artist. The Paston Treasure follows a Dutch and Flemish still-life tradition known as ‘Vanitas’ in which symbolic objects such as hourglass, watch, clock and candle suggest the vanity of life and worldly wealth. The work must have been painted in England, probably at Oxnead, by a Dutch artist. One strong candidate is Haarlem-trained pupil and son-in-law of Frans Hals, Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraeten (c.1630-1700). He came to England in 1666, and often painted still-life ‘portraits’ of real or symbolic objects, sometimes on a similar scale to The Paston Treasure. But nothing in his or any other known still-life artist’s oeuvre is quite as powerfully personal and poignant.

Our painting includes not only a real collection, but a portrait, almost certainly of Robert’s favourite daughter, Mary, who holds a song whose words clearly refer to death. X-rays of the painting reveal changes in its composition which suggest a change of emphasis - towards a memento mori. During the mid-1670s, when this picture was painted, it is known that Mary died, and Robert fell into serious debt and began to sell his collection. Thus the painting perhaps commemorated the very point in time where the Paston family fortunes began to decline irreparably. By 1732 Robert’s son had also died, bankrupt, and the fall of the family was complete. The Paston Treasure will bring out the many complex and fascinating themes of this painting, both to give an insight into the stunning art collections once held in Norfolk, and a glimpse into the extraordinary circumstances in which this collection, along with the Pastons, could disappear within half a century.

The Paston Treasure: Riches and Rarities of the Known World is curated by Dr Francesca Vanke, Keeper of Fine Art and Curator of Decorative Art, Norfolk Museums Service, working with a team of curators and historians in the UK and America.