Pieter Casteels, a Flemish painter and engraver

Engraving

Engraving is the practice of incising a design on to a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an intaglio printing plate, of copper or another metal, for printing...

, was born at Antwerp in 1684, and came to England in 1708. He painted birds, flowers, and fruit; but his paintings have not much to recommend them, and were greatly inferior to those of an English contemporary artist, Luke Cradock

Marmaduke Cradock

-Biography:Cradock was an English painter of birds, dead game, and other animals, in which he particularly excelled. He was born in Somerton and served an apprenticeship to a house-painter in London...

. As an engraver he has more merit. In 1726 he published a set of twelve plates of birds and fowls etched from his own designs; and, besides these, executed some other plates from his own pictures. He died at Richmond in 1749.

Another set of twelve plates, called The Twelve Months of Flowers, was sold at Christie's

Christie's

Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...

New York on 25 May 2005 for $1,640,000.