Notes
PROPERTY FROM A EUROPEAN PRIVATE COLLECTION
We would like to thank Fred Meijer for proposing the attribution of this painting and for providing the following catalogue note.
This most interesting flower painting first appeared on the art market in 1990 as a German work from the late sixteenth century. Soon after it was attributed to Ludger tom Ring the Younger (1522/30-1584) by the Swedish still-life expert Professor Ingvar Bergström. Although this attribution initially seemed convincing because of a certain similarity in the palette and the choice and rendering of some of the flowers, the present painting is more refined in its execution, more versatile in its choice of flowers and less rigid in its composition than tom Ring's known flower paintings. Moreover, none of the flowers shown here are exact matches to flowers in tom Ring's flower paintings and floral studies. Dr. Sam Segal, in his elaborate article on Ludger tom Ring's flowers, animals and still lifes in the two-volume catalogue of the 1996 Münster exhibition (A. Lorenz, ed., Die Maler Tom Ring , Münster, Das Landesmuseum, 1996, no. 81) was the first to question the attribution in the literature, spelling out twelve arguments against it. Some of those are more valid than others, but on the whole they are conclusive. Instead, Segal connected this painting with a group of floral still lifes that he situated between tom Ring's bouquets and Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder's earliest works. In this context he also mentioned the enigmatic flower painter Lodewijck Jansz. van de Bosch, whose work Carel van Mander described in his Schilderboeck of 1604 but whose paintings are completely unknown to us at present. Apart from the possibility that this group is the work of another, unrecorded artist, Segal also suggested that these paintings might represent an early phase of the work of Bosschaert, who was already a guild member in 1593 but whose earliest known dated flower painting is from 1605. However, the different style of those earliest known Bosschaerts made him dismiss that possibility as unlikely.
Nevertheless, various arguments can be forwarded to connect this painting directly with Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder himself. The painting is closely related to two still lifes by Bosschaert that precede his earliest dated flower painting from 1605. The first is a small bouquet in a glass on copper (28.5 x 20 cm.) in the collection of the Piet en Nellie de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam (fig. 1; Exhibition catalogue, Masters of Middelburg , Waterman Gallery, Amsterdam, 1984, no. 3). This painting, signed in monogram, comes very close in style and handling to the flower painting offered here. Also directly related in several ways is a painting that was included in the Münster exhibition as German School, late sixteenth century (oil on panel, 43.5 x 31.5 cm; Lorenz, op. cit. , no. 81) and that appeared on the European art market in 2005. Dendro-chronological dating of the panel at the time of the exhibition revealed that it was ready for use in 1603 or slightly after. This squares perfectly with the fact that, from a stylistic point of view, it would appear to only marginally precede Bosschaert's earliest dated still lifes from 1605 and 1606. Moreover, the measurements and cut of the panel are characteristic for Middelburg.
The measurements of the present panel are virtually identical to those of the painting in the exhibition and the two share several flowers, among them the white narcissus at lower left, the yellow iris and the snowflake at the far left. In its turn, the exhibition painting shares several flowers with the de Boer work, such as the pansy and the columbine, and the white butterflies in both are virtually identical. Both works also have several (separate) flowers in common with Bosschaert's dated flower painting from 1606 in Cleveland (oil on copper, 35.6 x 29.3 cm., signed in monogram and dated 1606; see exhibition catalogue Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands 1550-1720 , Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 1999/2000, no. 5). That painting, in its turn, repeats the black-tailed skimmer seen at lower right in A still life of flowers in a vase .
There are two further still lifes of flowers that inter-connect the paintings mentioned above to Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. In his article, Segal ( op. cit. , fig. 28) mentioned a painting of flowers in a glass at Anglesey Abbey, near Cambridge, which he described as from the circle of Ambrosius Bosschaert (fig. 2; oil on panel, 37.5 x 27.5 cm., Fairhaven Collection, Anglesey Abbey). In comparison with the other works discussed here, the Fairhaven bouquet has very little breathing space, which suggests that the panel may originally have been larger, close to the Middelburg standard of about 43.5 x 31.5 cm. (I have not seen the back of the panel). The AB monogram on it, however, is authentic and in my view the painting is without doubt an autograph work by Bosschaert (I examined the painting in situ in July of 2004 and concluded that the monogram is not a later addition). A variant of the painting at Anglesey Abbey, an old photo of which is kept at the RKD, The Hague, may also be an autograph work by Bosschaert (oil on panel, 35 x 25 cm., probably reduced on all sides; see De Helsche en fluweelen Brueghel , kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, cat. no. 255, as by A. Bosschaert I). The original measurements may well have been identical to those of the painting offered here. Both the Angelsey Abbey painting and the now lost work recorded at the RKD share motifs with the present work, as well as with the paintings mentioned above. All still lifes in this group possess an almost identical stone plinth upon which the vase is placed, painted in an opaque creamy white. The treatment of the vase's shadow is also similar in all of them. In both the present painting and the one at Anglesey Abbey there is a bluebottle on the ledge. That fly would become almost a signature motif for Bosschaert.
Despite the many similarities and shared motifs mentioned above, it is an indisputable fact that the character of the bouquet offered here is different from the still lifes that can be quite firmly established as works by Ambrosius Bosschaert that predate 1605. The most conspicuous difference is the fact that Bosschaert buildt his bouquets around a number of fairly large blooms, usually cultivars, which he then interspersed with a host of smaller flowers. Here, the center of his bouquet consists of a cloud of small flowers, many of them indigenous, surrounded by a few larger blooms. Moreover, many of the flowers would appear to have been copied from herbals and prints rather than from life. Another issue is the vase in which the flowers are presented. Bouquets in vases, particularly the lavish ones portrayed by still-life painters, were not a common feature in Netherlandish households at the time, and may not even have existed. The same, consequently, goes for flower vases. In many of Bosschaert's early floral still lifes, he uses a simple rummer , a drinking glass, as a container, as did his contemporary Jan Brueghel the Elder. The Chinese porcelain vases Bosschaert (and his younger brother-in-law Balthasar van der Ast) painted were in fact non-existent objects, conceived in the artist's mind. The same is probably true for the glass vase shown in this painting.
The present painting also clearly connects with Bosschaert through a free copy of it in the Museum in Basle, into which shells and flowers from later Bosschaert compositions were added by the copyist (oil on panel, 53 x 39 cm., inv. no. 1499). The execution of that painting, judging from a good photo, is not up to Bosschaert's standard.
On the whole, these observations would appear to confirm that this painting is probably one of Bosschaert's earliest floral still lifes, one that precedes the paintings from around 1604 to 1606 discussed above, and one for which he, at least in part, had to rely on printed models, rather than on living flowers. For this painting, he may well have been inspired by one or two works by Ludger tom Ring that he may have seen, or perhaps even owned in his capacity as an art dealer. It would seem to fit in entirely as an early experiment by a highly talented artist, whose developments would be substantial in the course of the following years. In this respect it is interesting to note that there can be no doubt that sometime in 1606 Bosschaert saw some of Jan Brueghel's flower paintings for the first time. This clearly had a firm impact on his style and manner of composing, which can be followed closely in his dated works from 1606 and 1607, showing that he even copied flowers from Brueghel's bouquets into his own works.
Having established the conclusions above, we must confirm that the puzzle of the early seventeenth-century genesis of flower painting in Holland is far from solved. The work of Lodewijck Jansz. van den Bosch, about which van Mander tells us so enthusiastically, remains unknown to us, while at least one other painting that is closely connected with the works discussed here remains unattributed (oil on panel, 43.3 x 31 cm., measurements that again suggest Middelburg; see Lorenz, op. cit. , no. 82). This painting catalogued as circle of Ludger tom Ring includes the same narcissus, snowflake and sprig of lily-of-the-valley that appear in this painting. Its composition and execution is much more free than Bosschaert's early efforts as we now know them.
Fred Meijer
10 August 2007
