.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Balthasar van der Ast was the pupil and brother-in-law of Ambrosius Bosschaert I, who is acknowledged as introducing the Flemish tradition of still-life painting into Dutch art after his arrival in Middelburg in circa 1585 to escape religious persecution in the Southern Netherlands. Having absorbed the influences of his master, van der Ast broadened his pictorial repertoire to incorporate a more diverse selection of objects in his paintings, including shells and different fruits, as exemplified in the present works. It is rare to find such ambitiously conceived still lifes on this intimate scale in van der Ast’s oeuvre (other examples can be found in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; and Utrecht Centraal Museum), and even rarer to find flower and fruit still lifes paired in this way.
The number of surviving fruit still lifes by Ambrosius Bosschaert is very small and few of them reach the standards he achieved in his flower pieces, whereas they form a vital component of van der Ast’s work, who made them a speciality. Van der Ast experimented with combining flower and fruit still lifes in a single composition in the early 1620s, the earliest example being in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the present paintings, which are both signed and dated to ‘1625’, the subjects are presented as two distinct motifs.
In contrast to other still-life painters, including Georg Flegel and Osias Beert, who tended to display a number of different objects across the picture surface with equal emphasis on each, following Bosschaert’s example, van der Ast would often allow a single dish or basket to dominate the scene. The wan-li dish laden with apples, pears and grapes, and the wicker basket overflowing with tulips, roses, lilies and other flowers in these two works help to anchor and add order to their respective compositions. In contrast to the objects in the vessels, which are crammed in and piled on top of one another, the still life objects on the stone ledges are carefully positioned in relative isolation and can thus be observed as individual specimens. Shells feature prominently in both works: like tulips, exotic seashells were highly desirable items in seventeenth-century Holland and vast prices were paid by collectors for the best and rarest examples. The vogue for collecting shells, like tulip bulbs, was speculative and those who indulged were sometimes mocked as schelpenzotten (shell-fools). The satirist Roemer Visscher included a depiction of shells in his famous 1614 book of emblems Sinnepoppen, with the epigram: 'It is odd how a fool will spend his money'. As a consequence, shells in still-lifes have traditionally been interpreted as symbols of vanity and the transience of earthly beauty and possessions. By extension, the butterflies may be read as symbols of rebirth and eternity.
Dr. Fred Meijer, to whom we are grateful, thinks that these still lifes probably originated as a pair.
The number of surviving fruit still lifes by Ambrosius Bosschaert is very small and few of them reach the standards he achieved in his flower pieces, whereas they form a vital component of van der Ast’s work, who made them a speciality. Van der Ast experimented with combining flower and fruit still lifes in a single composition in the early 1620s, the earliest example being in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the present paintings, which are both signed and dated to ‘1625’, the subjects are presented as two distinct motifs.
In contrast to other still-life painters, including Georg Flegel and Osias Beert, who tended to display a number of different objects across the picture surface with equal emphasis on each, following Bosschaert’s example, van der Ast would often allow a single dish or basket to dominate the scene. The wan-li dish laden with apples, pears and grapes, and the wicker basket overflowing with tulips, roses, lilies and other flowers in these two works help to anchor and add order to their respective compositions. In contrast to the objects in the vessels, which are crammed in and piled on top of one another, the still life objects on the stone ledges are carefully positioned in relative isolation and can thus be observed as individual specimens. Shells feature prominently in both works: like tulips, exotic seashells were highly desirable items in seventeenth-century Holland and vast prices were paid by collectors for the best and rarest examples. The vogue for collecting shells, like tulip bulbs, was speculative and those who indulged were sometimes mocked as schelpenzotten (shell-fools). The satirist Roemer Visscher included a depiction of shells in his famous 1614 book of emblems Sinnepoppen, with the epigram: 'It is odd how a fool will spend his money'. As a consequence, shells in still-lifes have traditionally been interpreted as symbols of vanity and the transience of earthly beauty and possessions. By extension, the butterflies may be read as symbols of rebirth and eternity.
Dr. Fred Meijer, to whom we are grateful, thinks that these still lifes probably originated as a pair.