Notes
The nature of Bosschaert’s early work has long been the subject of
speculation. His earliest dated work is from 1605, and from then on a
sequence of dated and undated works allows us to chart the progress of
his career with some precision. By 1605 however he was already well over
thirty years old, and he was recorded as a member of the Guild of Saint
Luke from 1593 onwards, serving as its Dean on occasion. He must
therefore have been active as a painter for at least twelve years before
his earliest dated work, and although it is sometimes assumed that he
did not turn his hand to flower painting until 1605 or shortly before,
it seems more likely that he had an early career in the genre that
predates 1605. Given the sophistication of his flower paintings from
1606 and onwards, it is most unlikely that they could be the works of an
artist embarking on a career in the genre of flower painting. Perhaps
one of the reasons why some have assumed this to be the case is the
absence of much in the way of independent flower-still life painting in
European art before this date. The earliest surviving dated
flower-pieces in oils in Netherlandish art were painted by Roelandt
Savery in 1603, possibly in Amsterdam, but more likely after his arrival
in Prague. Jacques de Gheyn was probably painting flower pieces in oils
before 1604, and possibly as early as 1600, but his earliest surviving
dated flower piece is from 1612. The earliest documentary evidence for a
flower-piece by Jan Brueghel the Elder is 1605, but given the
sophistication of his still lifes of 1606-8, he may well have painted
them before that. What is clear is that from 1606 onwards there was a
sudden and considerable output in the genre by Ambrosius Bosschaert the
Elder, Jan Brueghel the Elder, Roelandt Savery and their increasing
numbers of followers.
The causes for this explosion of interest in and production of flower
painting from 1606 onwards are various. For Savery it was certainly the
obsessive interest in the natural world of his patron in Prague, the
Emperor Rudolf II, and the activities coterie of artists responding to
it in media other than oil painting: for example in works on vellum by
Jacques De Gheyn, Joris Hoefnagel and others, and in prints. For Jan
Brueghel a key impetus came from his loyal patrons in Italy who had
earlier promoted his career in the depiction of landscapes. In the work
of these artists, and in that of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder in
Middelburg, their developments as flower painters can be charted in a
row of dated works from 1606 onwards.
It is generally accepted that Bosschaert is likely to have encountered
Jan Brueghel and his work in 1606, because his flower pieces from that
year onwards show an awareness of Brueghel’s style, and this
contact must have been renewed in subsequent years, because as
Bosschaert’s highly personal style develops, awareness of what
Brueghel was doing is detectable in his work.1 That Bosschaert’s
artistic personality was amenable to influence becomes clear from the
works painted upon his arrival in Utrecht, which respond immediately to
what Savery was doing there following his return from Prague.
A consideration of what Bosschaert was doing in the years before 1606 is
therefore ill-served by examining the work of his peers of around that
date and later. The production of images of floral art per se, and not
as an adjunct to history painting, existed before the first decade of
the 17th Century, but it was highly sporadic, especially in oil
painting. Although produced in relative isolation in Münster in
Westphalia, the flower paintings made by Ludger tom Ring in the early
1560s were – at least on the basis of what is known today -
revolutionary, and unprecedented in Western art. Two works are dated
1562, and none is likely to date from much after 1565.2 The artist was
from a family of painters active in Westphalia, and the vast majority of
their output consisted of portraits. He does not appear to have had any
immediate followers in the still life genre, and there is scant hard
evidence for their particular popularity or for a traceable diaspora
among collectors, for example in The Netherlands.
Tom Ring’s influence is however palpable in a group of five still
life paintings of flowers in vases etc on pale stone ledges set against
a dark background which are closely linked in style, subject matter and
in the size and type of their panels. The panels are of Baltic oak, and
tree ring analysis (dendrochronology) done on several of them including
the present picture yields a typical likely use date from around 1601
onwards.3 Moreover, as Martin Bijl and others have observed, the size
and the way they are cut is typical of panel production in Middelburg.4
The group comprises:
A. A still life of flowers in a tall glass vase (43.2 by 33 cm.), sold
at Christie’s in New York, 4 October 2007, lot 10;
B. An adaptation of the above with fewer large flowers and more smaller
ones, and crudely painted objects on the ledge, perhaps later additions
(53 x 39 cm.); Basel, Kunstmuseum;
C. The present work (43.5 by 32.3 cm.);
D. A still life of lilies and numerous other flowers in an earthenware
jug (43.3 by 31 cm.), in a private collection.5
E. A still life of wildflowers in a Venetian glass vase (58.6 by 35.7
cm.), in a private collecton in the U.S.A.6
Apart from the common compositional elements of the two variants A and
B, there are further shared motifs. The yellow iris which appears in the
upper left of the present work, C, occurs in identical form in the upper
right of A & B. The white narcissus set on a diagonal in the lower right
of the present work, C, occurs in a corresponding position in no. A, and
it recurs, set in the jug in D. In all of these works the flowers fill
the upper two-thirds of the picture plane, extending into the corners
and forming an approximate square. They are all lit from the left. E. is
less well-known than the other works, but is closest in style to D.
All four paintings in the group were probably painted in Middelburg in
between circa 1601 and 1605. They are particularly close to two early
and little-studied works by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, which almost
certainly both predate 1606. One of these is a signed but undated early
work by him in the Stichting P & N de Boer in Amsterdam (see Fig. 1).7
In it is to be seen a Damask Rose similar to those in the present work
and others. Moreover the handling of the trefoil columbine leaves rimmed
with yellow highlights and the orange flowers is identical to those in
the present work, as is the Cabbage White butterfly (Pieris Rapae). It
has a glossy enamel-like handling which is quite unlike his own work
from 1606 and later, but which is recognisable in each of the group 1 to
4, and especially in the present work. These are characteristics which
hark back to Ludger tom Ring. The composition of the De Boer Stichting
flower piece is closer in type to Bosschaert’s earliest dated
pictures than to any predecessor, but its style points backwards to the
present group.
The other painting by Bosschaert is less studied than the Stichting De
Boer work, and although signed with an authentic monogram, has only
recently been generally accepted as from his hand (see Fig. 2). That
painting, in the Fairhaven collection at Anglesea Abbey in
Cambridgeshire (National Trust) is of remarkably high quality and
sophistication, but although very similar to it in style and in the
enamel-like handling, is compositionally further removed than the
Stichting De Boer work from the dated and datable output of Bosschaert
from 1606 onwards.8 It has been linked with the present group of four,
but it is on a smaller panel.9 Like the others in the group, the blooms
fill the corners of the composition (although forming a rectangle rather
than a rough square), and they are set against a black background, while
resting in a vessel on a pale stone ledge. The tapering glass beaker
decorated with prunts harks forward to Bosschaert’s more familiar
later work: indeed it is identical to the one in the De Boer Stichting
work; as does the density of the arrangement of blooms, but in other
respects it is more closely related to the present group. The carnation,
and the shadow that it casts from the light entering from the left, are
virtually identical to the one in the present work: in both pictures it
seems to hover above the ledge, though on different sides of the
foreground. An identical group of Yellow Freesias appears to the lower
right of the arrangement of blooms in both pictures. The centre of each
composition is anchored by a large white rose, the lower edge of which
is partly obscured by leaves, but in both pictures an identical sprig of
a pink flower to the right and a bud of the same to the left occur. The
Damask rose that appears in the upper right of both compositions is the
same, albeit minus the Cabbage White butterfly in the Fairhaven picture
that recurs lower down in the present work. The sprig of Carnation just
breaking out of its bud in the lower left of the blooms in the present
picture occurs further up on the left of the Fairhaven work. The clump
of white flowers to the left of each painting is not absolutely
identical in each, but is very similar, though rotated about 45 degrees
on its axis in the present work. In both it serves the same
compositional purpose. Like the Stichting De Boer picture, its stone
ledge setting is a marked characteristic of Bosschaert's early work.
Re-using particular blooms or sprigs or clumps of flowers in different
compositions, sometimes in the same relative position, sometimes not, is
a familiar characteristic of Bosschaert’s later career, but as is
now abundantly clear, he was working in this way early in his career
– or at least earlier than his first dated works.
The links between the present work and the signed Stichting de Boer and
Fairhaven paintings make it clear that it is an autograph work by
Bosschaert, and the close connections between it and the other paintings
in the group show that they too are from his hand. This view has been
expressed in the cited literature by Fred G. Meijer and is confirmed by
him in a report dated 16th February 2005 and available on request. Sam
Segal initially considered that the group of four should be located in
The Netherlands before Bosschaert’s earliest works. He mentioned
the little-known flower painter Lodewijck Jansz. van de Bosch as a
possible author, but also advanced the idea that they may have formed
part of the early oeuvre of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. He
subsequently confirmed the attribution to Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder
in a letter dated 25th December 2004.10
The blooms in the present picture emerge from what looks like a Wan-Li
(ie then contemporary) Chinese vase with gilt mounts added in The
Netherlands. In fact, the peacock-like bird facing the viewer is not a
motif found in imported Wan-Li ware, and the form of the vase is not
typical either. Bosschaert, followed by his pupil Balthasar van der Ast,
included this vase with precise form and decoration of his own devising
in a number of works, including some of his earliest flower pieces.
Similar vases occur in the works of other early 17th Century flower
painters, such as Jan Brueghel the Elder.
In the absence of dated works, a chronology of the present painting and
the other works under discussion is hard to assess. On the basis of
dendrochronology, all are likely to date from after 1600. Nos A & B are
probably the earliest. The present work, no. C, may be the next in date,
followed by D. (to judge from a black and white photograph), then the
Fairhaven signed picture and no. D, followed by the Stichting De Boer
painting.
Reconstructing the oeuvre of a painter before his earliest dated or
securely documented work should only to be undertaken with caution, and
must be based on secure solid evidence, as the unmasking of Van
Meegeren's forging of an early career for Vermeer reminds us. On the
basis of technical evidence, this painting and the other paintings in
the group to which the present work belongs must have been painted in
The Netherlands shortly after 1600, probably in Middelburg. They recall
the works of Ludger Tom Ring, and they were surely also influenced by
artists working on vellum, and also, especially in their compositions,
by engraved flower pieces by Adriaen Collaert and others. The close
relationship between the works is undoubted. The relationship between
them, and between the present work in particular, and the earliest
signed works by Bosschaert, including the use of common motifs such as
individual blooms and groups of flowers and leaves as part of a working
method familiar to us from Bosschaert's subsequent career, is so close
that it is most unlikely that anyone other than Ambrosius Bosschaert the
Elder could have painted them.
1. Fred G. Meijer noted this.
2. See A. Lorenz (ed.), die Maler tom Ring, exhibition catalogue, Münster
1996, vol. II, pp. 390-399, 639, nos. 76-80, 194, all reproduced; see
also S. Kemperdick, in B. Brinkmann (ed.), The Magic of Things,
exhibition catalogue, Basel 2008, pp. 34-6, no. 3, reproduced, also fig.
8.
3. Peter Klein’s brief report dated 8th June 2004 indicates a
plausible date of use for the Baltic oak panel from 1601 onwards, while
Ian Tyers’ more comprehensive report suggests that the tree from
which the panel was made was felled sometime after 1590, from which an
earliest plausible use date from 1600 onwards can be extrapolated.
Copies of both reports are available on request.
4. See S. Kemperdick. op. cit., p. 96, under no. 22, also Fred G. Meijer’s
report dated 16th February 2005.
5. The works are as follows:
A. See Fred G. Meijer’s report dated 10 August 2007, reprinted as
the catalogue entry to lot 106, Christie’s catalogue of Old Master
Paintings, New York, 4 October 2007, pp. 156-9, reproduced. See also A.
Lorenz (op. cit,), vol. II, pp. 641-2, no. 196, reproduced.
B. Inv. no. 1499; see S. Kemperdick, op. cit., no. 23, reproduced, as
Netherlandish Master around 1600 Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (?).
Fred Meijer (op. cit.) thinks that this picture is "not up to
Bosschaert's standard"
D. Idem, pp. 96-7, no. 22, reproduced, as Netherlandish Master around
1600.
6. See A. Lorenz (ed.), op. cit., vol. II, p. 640, no. 195, reproduced.
7. See N. Bakker et al, Masters of Middelburg, exhibition catalogue,
Amsterdam 1984, p. 122, no. 3, reproduced.
8. National Trust Inventory Number 515452; see Segal under literature,
vol. I, p. 130, reproduced fig. 28, as Umkreis [Circle of] Ambrosius
Bosschaert the Elder; see also F.G. Meijer in the Christie’s
catalogue entry, where the attribution to Bosschaert is confirmed
following first-hand inspection. The painting is registered as by
Bosschaert on the National Trust website. A possibly autograph variant
of it is recorded in an old photograph kept at the R.K.D, The Hague (oil
on panel, 35 by 25 cm.; see De Helsche en fluweelen Brueghel, exhibition
catalogue, De Boer, Amsterdam, 1935, cat. no. 255, as by Ambrosius
Bosschaert the Elder).
9. Fred G. Meijer has suggested that it may have been cut down from a
Middelburg panel of a sort common to the present group, but its
composition, with blooms filling the upper two-thirds of the composition
but kept within the current picture plane, suggests otherwise.
10. A copy of this is available on request. Stephan Kemperdick, in two
catalogue entries in the still life exhibition in Basel and elsewhere
based his entries on Segal’s opinion of 1996, but noted that the
panels are of Middelburg origin; op. cit., pp. 96 &98, under nos. 22 &
23.
