Lot 334: SIMON RENARD DE SAINT-ANDRÉ

SIMON RENARD DE SAINT-ANDRÉ PARIS 1614 - 1677 A VANITAS STILL LIFE WITH A SKULL, A VIOLIN, A MUSICAL SCORE, A PIPE AND TOBACCO, AN HOURGLASS AND A CANDLE ON A DRAPED TABLE inscribed on the musical score: Secunda pars. 4 voc. / ORLANDE / E miferum quate tandem re / ue fequanperte quondam mihi vi. ta place / cum moenibus. vrbes. Et populi laeteque oil on canvas 25 5/8 by 21 1/4 in.; 65.1 by 54 cm.

Paris, Galerie Alfred Daber, Natures mortes Françaises, 9 April - 6 May 1959, no. 11.

Comtesse d'Origny;
Anonymous sale (The Property of a Lady of Title), New York, Christie's, 29 January 1999, lot 93;
There purchased by the present collector.

Embracing the Netherlandish tradition of vanitas paintings, Saint-André worked in Paris in the seventeenth century and was one of the foremost French artists working in that genre. In his works, he continued the use of iconographical imagery, such as the skull, the hour-glass, and snuffed-out candle, to comment on the fragility of life and the inevitability of death.

Delicately draped off the edge of the table, the music contains a single vocal part of a religious Latin choral composition, with the text specifically relating to death. The inscription on the musical score probably refers to the sixteenth century composer Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594), and style of printing is similar to works published in Venice and elsewhere in the middle of the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the musical transcription appears to be fairly accurate, a testament to the artist's faithful representation and attention to detail in his paintings.