Adriaen Coorte

Exhibited by Koetser Gallery

Material Oil on Paper, laid down on Panel

Dimensions 13.7 × 16.2 cm

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

Today, Coorte’s known oeuvre consists of some sixty-four paintings only. Many of his compositions, like the present one, depict natural objects set on a stone ledge against a dark background.

Coorte painted a chestnut on a table as early as 1685, however not as the sole subject. As Coorte's work evolved, he began to prefer depicting individual fruit, vegetable or shells as the primary motif of a composition. Only on four known occasions did Coorte paint nuts: in 1696 Still Life with Hazelnuts (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford); in 1702 Still-life with 2 Wallnuts (Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest); the third example is the present painting, our Still-life with Chestnuts, beautifully signed and dated A. Coorte 1705, it is the artists' only known composition where the chestnuts take centerstage; a fourth composition of 5 chestnuts has not been accounted for since 1890. All of Coorte's 'nut' paintings seem to have been executed on very small sized surfaces.

While the composition is characteristically small scale, its mysterious play of light and immaculate attention to detail gives it a tremendous wall-power as well as a timeless quality.

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Provenance

Collection Helmuth Meissner;
Confiscated by the Stasi in 1982 (All claims relating to the GDR persecution of Helmuth Meissner with regards to the present work have been settled);
Sale Christie’s Amsterdam, 29 November 1988, lot 109, illustrated;
Koetser Gallery, Zürich;
Mr and Mrs Henry Weldon in 1989;
Private Collection, by descent.

Literature

F.A. van Braam et al., World Collector’s Annuary: Alphabetical Classification of Paintings, Watercolours, Pastels and Drawings Sold at Auction, Harderwijk, 1946-1997, vol. 39 (1988-1989), p. 80;
F. Meijer, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford. Catalogue of the Collection of Paintings. The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward (Collection Catalogue with two introductory essays), Zwolle/Oxford 2003, p.197, note 2);
T. Dibbits, “Aardbeien, abrikozen, kruisbessen en perziken: Vier stillevens van Adriaen Coorte”, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52 (2004), p.164 (note19);
Bénézit, Dictionnary of Artists, Paris 2006, vol. 3, p. 1357;
Q. Buvelot, The still lifes of Adriaen Coorte -- oeuvre catalogue, accompanying the exhibition Ode to Coorte, The Hague, 2008, no. 64, pp. 56-57 fig. 45, 118, 131, reproduced.