Still life with a tulip, roses, a fritillary, an African marigold, columbine, cranesbill, lily-of-the-valley, forget-me-nots and other flowers in a roemer with shells and a pansy on a stone ledge, Circa 1619-1621

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder

Exhibited by Roberti Fine Art

Material Oil on panel

Dimensions 35.5 × 24.4 cm

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

This elegant floral still life was painted by the inventor of flower painting in The Netherlands, Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. Known for having worked in the relatively secluded Zeeland city of Middelburg, Bosschaert's pioneering still lifes were created in isolation from his contemporaries Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) in Antwerp and Roelandt Savery (1576-1639) in Prague. Datable to about 1619-21, this work - which is signed in monogram - was produced in the final years of Bosschaert's ground-breaking and prolific career.

Recently dated by Dr Fred G. Meijer to around 1619-21, and described by him as a characteristic late work by Bosschaert the Elder, this painting was likely executed during the final years of the artist's career, when he had settled in Breda. Meijer compares various elements in this picture with a still life by Bosschaert dated 1619 in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Some of the same sprigs and flowers feature in both, as does the beautifully painted small yellow shell. Other analogous floral elements including the pansies,

lily-of-the-valley and cranesbill - are found in a still life dated to the last year of Bosschaert's life in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.. This comparison was first drawn by Sam Segal, who noted that some of the same flower motifs, such as the pansy and the lily-of-the-valley appear also in the Washington painting, while the cranesbill features in reverse.

In his book on the Bosschaert dynasty, Laurens Johannes Bol remarks on the fact that these final years of the Elder's painting career were particularly productive. It was during this period when the artist had forsaken the worldly cares of Utrecht, alongside the continual civil cases relating to the collection of debts, that he found himself in a more tranquil situation in the south. Here in this still life, the symphony of rich purples and reds, contrasted with the staccato additions of blues and yellows, is reminiscent of the 'lucid, more severe and quiet' style that marks his later productions. The elegant balance of the composition too is in contrast with his more flamboyant examples from earlier in his career. It is perhaps for these traits and others that the late Sam Segal ascribed the work among the early productions of his son Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger (1609-1645)

- a view at odds with the picture's traditional attribution and more recent scholarship (see Literature). The greater detailing and fluidity in the handling, in contrast to Bosschaert the Younger's stiff modelling, which is absent here, further strengthens the case for this being a work by the father and not the son.

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Provenance

With Leonard Koetser, London, 1961 (as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder);
Private collector, London, by whom offered for sale anonymously, London, Sotheby's, 9 December 1981, lot 51 (as Ambrosius
Rosschaert the Younger) withdrawn.
nonymous sale, (The Property of a Gentleman), London christie's, 10 July 1992, lot 6, for £190,000 (as Ambrosius
Bosschaert the Younger);
Where acquired by the present owner.

Literature

Advertisement in The Connoisseur, October 1961, p. LXXV (as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder);
S.H. Pavière, Floral Art: Great Masters of Flower Painting, Leigh-on-Sea 1965, p. 10, reproduced in colour pl. 3 (as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder):
S. Segal, 'Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger', in N. Bakker, I.
Bergström, G. Jansen, S. H. Levie and S. Segal, Masters of Middelburg: exhibition in the honour of Laurens J. Bol, exh. cat., Amsterdam 1984, pp. 66 and 72 n. 5 (as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger);
S. Segal and K. Alen, Dutch and Flemish Flower Pieces: Paintings, Drawings, and Prints up to the Nineteenth Century, Leiden and Boston 2020, vol. 1, p. 281 (as Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger).