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Lot Essay
Comparatively few biographical details are known about Christoffel van den Berghe, whose small corpus of no more than a handful of highly refined still lifes and a dozen or so landscapes constitute high points within painting in Middelburg in the first third of the seventeenth century. While no records are extant, he was probably born in Sint-Maartensdijk in Zeeland and later settled in the regional artistic center of Middelburg, probably in or around 1617. In 1619, he was recorded as a leader (‘beleeder’) of the city’s painter’s guild and two years later was appointed dean. That same year he acquired a house on the Korte Breestraat near the beguinage and was still living there in 1628.
Van den Berghe’s residence in Middelburg had a profound impact on his artistic production. As his few surviving still lifes attest, he became intimately familiar with the still lifes of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, who was resident in the city until 1613. The present painting includes several details that recall Bosschaert’s paintings of around 1605-10. The globular porcelain vase with a gilded foot recalls a type Bosschaert favored in a number of his early flower paintings, including examples today in the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (inv. no. 21 (1958.5)); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 547) and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. WA1940.2.15), while the yellow and red striated tulip at upper right appears to be a direct quotation of a flower that appears in a Bosschaert bouquet of 1608 (fig. 1).
Only two paintings by van den Berghe are dated, a floral bouquet dated 1617 in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is traditionally regarded as the artist’s masterpiece, and a still life of dead game birds dated 1624 in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Like this painting, the Philadelphia painting depicts a compact arrangement of flowers on a copper support, albeit of slightly larger dimensions. However, in 2000, Fred Meijer perceptively suggested that the present painting probably predates the Philadelphia painting by a bit on account of its somewhat less smooth and refined execution as well as its closer proximity to the work of Bosschaert (private communication).
That flower painting flourished in Middelburg in the early decades of the seventeenth century has much to do with the fact that Zeeland was one of the richest provinces in the fledgling Dutch Republic on account of its strategic position for trade and shipping. Its capital, Middelburg, also contained one of the most important Chambers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), second only to the one in Amsterdam. In addition to its central position in trade, Middelburg was renowned for its botanical gardens, full of exotic species. There can be little doubt that the city’s plant enthusiasts equally drove the burgeoning local market for floral still lifes.
Van den Berghe’s residence in Middelburg had a profound impact on his artistic production. As his few surviving still lifes attest, he became intimately familiar with the still lifes of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, who was resident in the city until 1613. The present painting includes several details that recall Bosschaert’s paintings of around 1605-10. The globular porcelain vase with a gilded foot recalls a type Bosschaert favored in a number of his early flower paintings, including examples today in the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (inv. no. 21 (1958.5)); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 547) and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. WA1940.2.15), while the yellow and red striated tulip at upper right appears to be a direct quotation of a flower that appears in a Bosschaert bouquet of 1608 (fig. 1).
Only two paintings by van den Berghe are dated, a floral bouquet dated 1617 in the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is traditionally regarded as the artist’s masterpiece, and a still life of dead game birds dated 1624 in The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Like this painting, the Philadelphia painting depicts a compact arrangement of flowers on a copper support, albeit of slightly larger dimensions. However, in 2000, Fred Meijer perceptively suggested that the present painting probably predates the Philadelphia painting by a bit on account of its somewhat less smooth and refined execution as well as its closer proximity to the work of Bosschaert (private communication).
That flower painting flourished in Middelburg in the early decades of the seventeenth century has much to do with the fact that Zeeland was one of the richest provinces in the fledgling Dutch Republic on account of its strategic position for trade and shipping. Its capital, Middelburg, also contained one of the most important Chambers of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), second only to the one in Amsterdam. In addition to its central position in trade, Middelburg was renowned for its botanical gardens, full of exotic species. There can be little doubt that the city’s plant enthusiasts equally drove the burgeoning local market for floral still lifes.