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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, for confirming the attribution, after seeing the picture in the original. He dates it to circa 1650-5.
Jan van Kessel was the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder and initially the pupil of Jan Brueghel the Younger, before going on to study under Simon de Vos and registering in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a blomshilder (flower painter).
He produced mainly small-scale oil paintings on copper or wood panel, preferring the use of such hard supports that enabled him to depict flowers, fruit, birds, insects and other wildlife, with great precision and fineness. He would make use of illustrated scientific texts, but also frequently worked from nature.
The present, signed, copper panel is relatively unusual in that it is an upright pure flower-piece by the artist, with the glass vase placed on a simple architectural plinth, providing a particularly harmonious composition, that in its simplicity is strongly reminiscent of the work of the Antwerp still life specialist, Daniel Seghers.
Jan van Kessel was the grandson of Jan Brueghel the Elder and initially the pupil of Jan Brueghel the Younger, before going on to study under Simon de Vos and registering in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as a blomshilder (flower painter).
He produced mainly small-scale oil paintings on copper or wood panel, preferring the use of such hard supports that enabled him to depict flowers, fruit, birds, insects and other wildlife, with great precision and fineness. He would make use of illustrated scientific texts, but also frequently worked from nature.
The present, signed, copper panel is relatively unusual in that it is an upright pure flower-piece by the artist, with the glass vase placed on a simple architectural plinth, providing a particularly harmonious composition, that in its simplicity is strongly reminiscent of the work of the Antwerp still life specialist, Daniel Seghers.