Bart Peizel was born in Veendam in 1887, the son of teacher and journalist Kornelis Peizel. He worked briefly at a bank but wanted to become a painter. He first studied at the Academia Minerva in Groningen, and then in 1910 he entered the Rijksnormaalschool van Kunstnijverheid (National Normal School for Applied Arts) in Amsterdam, where he then settled permanently. A few years after receiving his diploma, Peizel married painter Thérèse Ansingh (1883-1968). This marriage gave him access to the Amsterdam art scene and the circle of prominent businessmen, who commissioned his portraits. Peizel painted cityscapes, landscapes, still lifes, and especially portraits. He had a fairly traditional painting style. He was neither an experimental painter nor an innovator, but he was a highly skilled one, as evidenced by this lavish floral still life in the De Witte Zwaan collection.