Lot 19: f - ABRAHAM BOSSCHAERT MIDDELBURG(?) 1612/13 - 1643 UTRECHT

THE PROPERTY OF A GERMAN PRIVATE COLLECTOR

A STILL LIFE OF TULIPS, ROSES, IRISES AND DAFFODILS IN A GLASS VASE WITH A CATERPILLAR AND THREE EXOTIC SHELLS ON A STONE LEDGE

A STILL LIFE OF TULIPS, ROSES, IRISES AND DAFFODILS IN A GLASS VASE WITH A CATERPILLAR AND THREE EXOTIC SHELLS ON A STONE LEDGE

measurements note
63 by 47 cm.

signed lower right: AB (in ligature) ofschaert

oil on panel

PROVENANCE

With Matthiesen, Berlin, by 1928, (no. 1263; according to a label on the reverse; photo recorded at the R.K.D. only shows the upper half of the composition).

LITERATURE

L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty. Painters of flowers and fruit, Leigh-on-Sea 1960, p. 91, no. 5.

NOTE

A comparable Flower stil life with shells, on copper, is recorded in a private collection (see Literature below, no. 4, reproduced).

Abraham Bosschaert was the youngest son of the celebrated still life painter Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621) and the nephew of Balthasar van der Ast (1593/94-1657). He was a prominent painter in Utrecht during the third and fourth decades of the seventeenth century. His older brothers Johannes and Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger were also still life painters and one or both were probably his teachers, since their father died when Abraham was eight. It is hard to distinguish his work from that of his brother Ambrosius, but fortunately the form of their signature differs clearly.