Lot 159: JACOB VAN WALSCAPELLE

JACOB VAN WALSCAPELLE DORDRECHT 1644 - 1727 AMSTERDAM STILL LIFE WITH FLOWERS IN A GLASS VASE ON A MARBLE LEDGE, ALONG WITH EARS OF CORN, SHELLS, A SNAIL, A WASP AND OTHER INSECTS bears signature lower right: AB Mignon ( AB in ligature) oil on canvas 38 by 29.7 cm.; 15 by 11 3/4 in.

Frankfurt-am-Main, Historisches Museum (inv. LG. 95:6), on loan, June 1995-2009 (as by Mignon);
Frankfurt-am-Main, Historisches Museum, Maria Sibylla Merian,1647-1710, Künstlerin und Naturforscherin, 1997, no. 23 (as by Mignon);
Haarle, Teylers Museum, Maria Sibylla Merian, 1647-1717, Kunstenares en Natuuronderzoekster, 14 March-31 May 1998, no. 23 (as by Mignon).

K. Wettengl, Maria Sibylla Merian,1647-1710, Künstlerin und Naturforscherin, exhibition catalogue, Frankfurt 1997, p. 47, no. 23, reproduced p. 49, as by Abraham Mignon (and Dutch ed., Maria Sibylla Merian 1647-1717) Kunstenares en Natuuronderzoekster, Haarlem 1998, with same pagination).

Private collection, Frankfurt.

Despite both the signature of Abraham Mignon and its having been published and exhibited as by him, Drs. Fred G. Meijer of the R.K.D., The Hague, who has inspected the painting at first hand, considers this flower piece to be by Jacob van Walscapelle, an artist born in Dordrecht in 1644. During the mid- to late-1660s Walscapelle's meticulous style, characterised by strongly lit and sharply defined flowers, comes extremely close to those of the Utrecht painter Jan Davidsz. de Heem and his pupil Abraham Mignon. So interchangeable is his style at this time with that of Mignon that their work has often been confused.