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Lot Essay
Collier was born in Breda, and although it is not known who his teacher was, he probably received his training in Haarlem, where he was influenced by Pieter Claesz. He lived and worked in Leiden between 1667 and 1693 and subsequently developed a successful career in London. He appears to have been back in Leiden around 1700, remaining there until 1706. The inscription 'fecit London' on his last-known dated work of 1707 supports the assumption that he died in that city.
The present lot is one of the earliest known works by Collier, and the format and size of the painting are also unique, suggesting that it may have been a specific commission or possibly produced for a special occasion. The only other paintings of similarly large size are also early works, and there is a marked difference in the high quality of these paintings compared to many of the later works on a smaller format, some of which have the appearance of studio assistance. A similarly composed painting by Collier, also signed and dated 1662, of horizontal format (102.5 x 132cm.), is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Inv. no. A3471). Apart from the Rijksmuseum painting and the present lot, only two other works by Collier are dated to 1662, one of which was sold at Sotheby's, London, Dec. 17, 1998, lot 39 (170,000=$280,000).
A significant portion of Collier's oeuvre is made up of so-called vanitas still lifes, a genre at which he excelled. In the present painting the presence of a slip of paper tucked between the pages of a Bible is inscribed 'VANITAS VANITATUM ET OMNIA VANITAS' ('vanity of vanities, all is vanity' Ecclesiastes 1:2-3), removing any doubt as to the message the artist intended to convey. Every object in the composition has a symbolic content expressing the vanitas theme: although man strives for immortality, symbolized by the ivy, the delicate glass roemer alludes to the fragility of life, and the casket of jewels reminds us that all the riches and wealth of the world will count for nothing on Judgement Day. The shawm (a type of flute) quietly functions as another symbol of life's transience, as do the music sheets, the globe, and the books all remind us that earthly knowledge is passing.
In order to compose his still lifes, Collier often used the same objects, many of which were presumably kept as studio props. It is also possible that Collier kept sketches or even detailed drawings of these objects in order to re-use them, sometimes decades later, as models. However, none of these studies are known to us today. The shawm in the present painting, for example, reappears in exactly the same position in a still life that is signed and dated 1663 by the artist in a French private collection (see the catalogue of the exhibition, Music and Painting in the Golden Age, op. cit., pp. 178-80, no. 13).
The music score in the present work has been identified as a page from Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof ('The pleasure garden of flutes'), published in 1646 (see Grijp, op. cit., pp. 37-43), and is a variation on the melody Quasta dolce sirena by Gastoldi.
The present lot is one of the earliest known works by Collier, and the format and size of the painting are also unique, suggesting that it may have been a specific commission or possibly produced for a special occasion. The only other paintings of similarly large size are also early works, and there is a marked difference in the high quality of these paintings compared to many of the later works on a smaller format, some of which have the appearance of studio assistance. A similarly composed painting by Collier, also signed and dated 1662, of horizontal format (102.5 x 132cm.), is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (Inv. no. A3471). Apart from the Rijksmuseum painting and the present lot, only two other works by Collier are dated to 1662, one of which was sold at Sotheby's, London, Dec. 17, 1998, lot 39 (170,000=$280,000).
A significant portion of Collier's oeuvre is made up of so-called vanitas still lifes, a genre at which he excelled. In the present painting the presence of a slip of paper tucked between the pages of a Bible is inscribed 'VANITAS VANITATUM ET OMNIA VANITAS' ('vanity of vanities, all is vanity' Ecclesiastes 1:2-3), removing any doubt as to the message the artist intended to convey. Every object in the composition has a symbolic content expressing the vanitas theme: although man strives for immortality, symbolized by the ivy, the delicate glass roemer alludes to the fragility of life, and the casket of jewels reminds us that all the riches and wealth of the world will count for nothing on Judgement Day. The shawm (a type of flute) quietly functions as another symbol of life's transience, as do the music sheets, the globe, and the books all remind us that earthly knowledge is passing.
In order to compose his still lifes, Collier often used the same objects, many of which were presumably kept as studio props. It is also possible that Collier kept sketches or even detailed drawings of these objects in order to re-use them, sometimes decades later, as models. However, none of these studies are known to us today. The shawm in the present painting, for example, reappears in exactly the same position in a still life that is signed and dated 1663 by the artist in a French private collection (see the catalogue of the exhibition, Music and Painting in the Golden Age, op. cit., pp. 178-80, no. 13).
The music score in the present work has been identified as a page from Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof ('The pleasure garden of flutes'), published in 1646 (see Grijp, op. cit., pp. 37-43), and is a variation on the melody Quasta dolce sirena by Gastoldi.