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Lot Essay
Balthasar van der Ast was the pupil and brother-in-law of Ambrosius Bosschaert I, who, following his arrival in Middelburg in circa 1585, introduced the Flemish tradition of still life painting into Dutch art. Having absorbed the influences of his master, van der Ast broadened Bosschaert’s pictorial repertoire to incorporate a more diverse selection of objects in his paintings, including a greater number and variety of shells, insects and reptiles, as exemplified by the present painting.
Van der Ast’s paintings emerged at a moment when well-to-do Dutchmen were avidly collecting exotic flora, fauna and shells (see, for example, Hendrick Goltzius’ Portrait of Jan Govertsz. van der Aar of 1603 in the P. and N. de Boer Foundation). And his residence in Middelburg, after Amsterdam the most important chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), would have ensured ready access to particularly desirable specimens. 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 emblem book entitled Sinnepoppen (1614) with the epigram: 'It is odd how a fool will spend his money'. As a consequence, shells in still lifes – including the silvery South African Turbo sarmaticus seen here – have traditionally been interpreted as symbols of vanity and the transience of earthly beauty and possessions, while butterflies, and by extension caterpillars like the one seen here, were seen as symbols of rebirth and eternity.
On several occasions in the years 1607-10, Bosschaert painted bouquets in glass beakers with a Dwarf Iris as the top flower, two tulips arranged diagonally below and three circular flowers at the base. Van der Ast, who began his studies with the elder artist in 1609, was heavily influenced by these early floral still lifes. The present painting conforms especially closely to an example formerly in the collection of Fernand Stuyck in Antwerp (for this painting, see L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of Flowers and Fruits, Leigh-on-Sea, 1980, pp. 61-62, no. 18, plate 12), not only in its basic compositional arrangement but in details like the central Carnation and the fly that has alighted on the rose seen frontally at lower center.
At the time of the painting's appearance in the Masters of Middelburg exhibition (1984), Sam Segal proposed a date of '1622 or very near to that date' for it (op. cit., p. 51). He further connected the painting with several dated works from that year which likewise depict a Love-in-a-Mist resting on a ledge, in particular the one today in the Saint Louis Art Museum (inv. no. 172:1955). The painting in Saint Louis likewise displays a bouquet with a Dwarf Iris at the top, a tulip on either side, a Carnation in the center and, along the bottom, a white rose with a fly, a double Kingcup, a pink Gallica Rose and a Sowbread within a glass beaker.
We are grateful to Fred Meijer for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs and for proposing a slightly later dating of circa 1623-25.
Van der Ast’s paintings emerged at a moment when well-to-do Dutchmen were avidly collecting exotic flora, fauna and shells (see, for example, Hendrick Goltzius’ Portrait of Jan Govertsz. van der Aar of 1603 in the P. and N. de Boer Foundation). And his residence in Middelburg, after Amsterdam the most important chamber of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), would have ensured ready access to particularly desirable specimens. 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 emblem book entitled Sinnepoppen (1614) with the epigram: 'It is odd how a fool will spend his money'. As a consequence, shells in still lifes – including the silvery South African Turbo sarmaticus seen here – have traditionally been interpreted as symbols of vanity and the transience of earthly beauty and possessions, while butterflies, and by extension caterpillars like the one seen here, were seen as symbols of rebirth and eternity.
On several occasions in the years 1607-10, Bosschaert painted bouquets in glass beakers with a Dwarf Iris as the top flower, two tulips arranged diagonally below and three circular flowers at the base. Van der Ast, who began his studies with the elder artist in 1609, was heavily influenced by these early floral still lifes. The present painting conforms especially closely to an example formerly in the collection of Fernand Stuyck in Antwerp (for this painting, see L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of Flowers and Fruits, Leigh-on-Sea, 1980, pp. 61-62, no. 18, plate 12), not only in its basic compositional arrangement but in details like the central Carnation and the fly that has alighted on the rose seen frontally at lower center.
At the time of the painting's appearance in the Masters of Middelburg exhibition (1984), Sam Segal proposed a date of '1622 or very near to that date' for it (op. cit., p. 51). He further connected the painting with several dated works from that year which likewise depict a Love-in-a-Mist resting on a ledge, in particular the one today in the Saint Louis Art Museum (inv. no. 172:1955). The painting in Saint Louis likewise displays a bouquet with a Dwarf Iris at the top, a tulip on either side, a Carnation in the center and, along the bottom, a white rose with a fly, a double Kingcup, a pink Gallica Rose and a Sowbread within a glass beaker.
We are grateful to Fred Meijer for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs and for proposing a slightly later dating of circa 1623-25.