Lot 241: Nicola van Houbraken Messina circa 1660 - 1723 Tuscany , Still Life with various flowers and a ceramic vase balanced in a clay pot resting on a stone ledge (possibly one of a series of months)

inscribed in the center of the edge of the stone ledge MAGGIO oil on canvas, unframed

measurements note 24 1/4 by 29 1/2 in.; 61.6 by 75 cm.

Baynton Family, Spye Park;
W.H. Hitchcock, Sr., Twichenham;
Thence by descent to Cyril Hitchcock, Richmond, Surrey;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York;

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
Nicola van Houbraken, as his name suggests, was of Flemish origin, although his family had established themselves in the Sicilian port city of Messina. His father Ettore was also a still life painter, and Nicola followed him in his choice of subject matter. He appears to have left Sicily for Livorno as a child, possibly in 1674 at the time of the Messinese uprising against the occupying Spanish. Nicola spent the rest of his life in Tuscany, where he found a ready audience for his varied and sometimes witty form of still life painting.υ1 Given the inscription on the present painting, it must have been one of a number of similar canvases, making up a series representing the twelve months. The attribution of the present work to Houbraken has been confirmed by Fred Meijer upon first-hand inspection. 1 Paintings by Houbraken were recorded in a number of important collections in Florence and the rest of Tuscany. The Medici guardaroba records at least one, and the Taddei family owned a picture which was described in their inventories as a portrait of the artist François Riviere . This is certainly the canvas now in the collection of the Uffizi, which is presented as a trompe l?oeil of a man peering through a rip in a canvas on which a beautifully rendered garland of flowers has been painted.