Four portrait medallions flanked by putti

Dutch-born Willem van Leen went to study in Paris in 1773, where he stayed there for three years and became friendly with Corneille van Spanedonck and Piat-Joseph Sauvage. After his return to Rotterdam, he travelled to Paris again in 1787 but left France at the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. During his Dutch period, he exclusively painted still lives of flowers and fruit, more rarely miniatures.