Lot 18: * PIETER CLAESZ. BURGSTEINFURT CIRCA 1579- HAARLEM 1660

oil on panel

STILL LIFE OF A CRAB ON A PEWTER PLATE, A SALT-CELLAR, A ROEMER, A KNIFE, A LEMON AND TWO OYSTERS ON A PEWTER PLATE, ALL RESTING ON A DRAPED TABLE

12 1/4 by 16 1/8 in.; 31.1 by 41cm

Art at Auction, The Year at Sotheby's & Parke-Bernet, 1970-71, reproduced on the cover as part of a group photograph.

PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF ALAN ACKERMAN

Otto Ekenberg, inherited from his father who purchased the painting in 1918;
By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, March 24, 1971, lot 7;
There purchased by the present collector.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, for confirming the attribution to Pieter Claesz. He has proposed a date of circa 1645.

At the time of the 1971 sale (see Provenance below), the present painting was sold together with a pendant (sold separately as lot 6), Still Life with a Half-peeled Lemon, an Overturned Beaker on a Pewter Dish, A Roemer, a Knife and Two Bread Rolls on a Table, signed in monogram and dated 164(8?). The paintings were sold with a copy of a certificate from Dr. Ingvar Bergström dated 1970.

N.R.A. Vroom dates the pendant of the present painting as 1645 (see A Modest Message, 1980, vol. 2, p. 31, no. 124, reproduced).