Lot 55: Ambrosius Bosschaert I (Antwerp 1573-1621)

Tulips, a rose, an iris, a carnation, snakeshead fritillaries, a columbine and other flowers in a Wan-li kraak porselein vase, with a butterfly and a fly on a stone ledge oil on copper 7 7/8 x 53/4 in. (20 x 14.7 cm.) NOTES We are grateful to Mr. Fred Meijer of the RKD for confirming the attribution to Ambrosius Bosschaert I on the basis of photographs; Mr. Meijer dates the painting to early in the artist's career, circa 1606. This is a newly re-discovered addition to oeuvre of the artist, who may justly be regarded as the founder of Dutch still-life painting. Originally from Antwerp, his family were forced to flee the Spanish Netherlands in the late 1580s to avoid religious persecution, settling instead in Middelburg. There, the young Ambrosius was enrolled into the Guild of Saint Luke in 1593, married Maria van der Ast (the elder sister of Balthasar, who became his pupil) in 1604, and bought a house in 1611. Towards the end of his life, however, he seems for some reason to have adopted a more peripatetic existence, moving by 1615 to Bergen-op-Zoom, in 1616 to Utrecht and living from 1619 in Breda. Dated paintings by Bosschaert are known with a few exceptions from the years 1605-21, however it was during his time in Middelburg that his reputation was established, having founded a school of painting that would bear his stamp well after his own lifetime. The present composition is an example of the most famous of his creations: a roughly vertical bunch of flowers, tightly grouped and boldly placed within the picture, painted with scientific detail and accuracy. The composition, designed to appear entirely natural, is carefully thought out: colours balance and complement, whilst forms vary enough to provide balance whilst avoiding any monotony of symmetry. Towards the bottom of the group, flowers are turned down or away from the viewer in order to enhance the rounded, three-dimensional nature of the image, an illusion furthered by the curve of the porcelain vase. It has frequently been observed that the artifice is continued by the fact that Bosschaert frequently included flowers in his compositions that blossom at different times of the year; from this, one can infer that the artist must have worked from preparatory studies. Unsurprisingly, therefore, examples of the same flowers recur through his oeuvre : for example, in the present picture the pink Batavian rose is also found in the still life of 1605 sold in these Rooms, 23 April 1982 (œ55,000) and in that of 1606 in the Cleveland Museum of Art (the latter painting also includes very similar examples of an iris and a columbine). Noticeably, however, Bosschaert introduces slight variations in his flowers, demonstrating the care with which he reintroduced his favourite motifs. It has been suggested that Bosschaert may have received his first commissions from botanists, eager for accurate documentation of the variety of floral species, and that it was from these that he subsequently built up his grouped compositions. Equally well known, however, and perhaps more constantly the reason for the commission of such works, was their simple ability to please. Much remarked upon in particular is the simple conceit that these blooms were able to provide pleasure and beauty all year round, an attitude mentioned by writers as early as Erasmus who, in his Colloquia, explained: 'Moreover, we are twice pleased when we see a painted flower competing with a living one. In one we admire the artifice of nature, in the other the genius of the painter, in each the goodness of God' - in the ensuing debate, one man remarks that the painted garden 'grows and pleases even in midwinter.' As most recently discussed by Alan Chong in the catalogue of the exhibition Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands 1550-1720 (Amsterdam and Cleveland, 1999, p. 26), this passage was picked up on by later artists: Hoefnagel quoted it with two depictions of fruit and flowers in 1597 (Sibiu, Muzeul Brukenthal), whilst Jan Brueghel I wrote to Cardinal Borromeo that his paintings would give particular pleasure during the winter months, a view reciprocated by Borromeo, who noted that images of the fruits and flowers of spring were a visual delight in the winter. Rather later, Jan Vos, in his Bloemen door van Aalst geschildert wrote an epigram for Van Aelst's bouquets that could equally well be applied to Bosschaer's work of half a century before: 'Here comes the sweet spring to appear in wintertime, Nature, who with her own brush, stupefies all who paint Begins, now that she sees this, to languish out of pure regret.'.