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Lot Essay
Daniel Seghers was born in Antwerp, but after his father's death he was taken by his mother to live in Utrecht, where his artistic training began. In 1609 or 1610 he returned to Antwerp where he completed his training under Jan Breughel I, before being accepted as an independent master in the local guild in 1611. Breughel is thought to have effected his reversion to the Catholic faith (he had been raised as a Protestant in Utrecht), and in 1614 he was admitted to the Jesuit Order, taking his final vows in 1625. Thereafter he was sent to the Jesuit Order in Rome, where he stayed until 1627 before returning to Antwerp where he remained for the rest of his life. Many of his signed pictures, including the present one, are inscribed 'Soc[ieta]tis Jesu', denoting his allegiance to the Jesuit Order, which received payment for his work. Seghers was already held in the highest regard for his flower painting during his own lifetime and the extent of his popularity is made clear by the existence of a list of works drawn up by the artist that numbers 239 pictures. Unfortunately the descriptions are too generic to enable many to be identified with any certainty (see W. Couvreur, 'Daniel Seghers' inventaris van door hem geschilderde bloemstukken', in Gentse Bijdragen tot de Kunstgeschiedenis den de Oudheidkunde, XX, 1967, pp. 87-158).
While Seghers's inventory attests to an extensive output, his range was largely limited to cartouches and flower garlands. Small-scale, 'pure' flower paintings like the present work are comparatively rare. Others that are on copper and contain some of the same flowers arranged in an identical vase include those sold at Sotheby's, London, 14 December 2000, lot 14; in the Paul Mellon collection (on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington); and with Johnny van Haeften, 1992.
These pictures are remarkable for their simplicity and their jewel-like, luminous clarity. In the same way that his garlands were perceived as a stimulus for religious contemplation, it seems likely - particularly in view of the artist's own religious convictions - that these small works were also intended for meditation, albeit on a more intimate and perhaps less overtly religious level. Lawrence Nichols has discussed the possibility that these 'pure' still-lifes were actually full of symbolic meaning (see L.W. Nichols, in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Age of Rubens, Ghent, 1994, p. 509). Thus, the metaphoric associations of the flowers in the present work may be seen to allude directly to those religious virtues associated with the Virgin: the white rose symbolic of purity, the pink rose of love, and the tulips, in this context, as symbols of virginity.
While Seghers's inventory attests to an extensive output, his range was largely limited to cartouches and flower garlands. Small-scale, 'pure' flower paintings like the present work are comparatively rare. Others that are on copper and contain some of the same flowers arranged in an identical vase include those sold at Sotheby's, London, 14 December 2000, lot 14; in the Paul Mellon collection (on loan to the National Gallery of Art, Washington); and with Johnny van Haeften, 1992.
These pictures are remarkable for their simplicity and their jewel-like, luminous clarity. In the same way that his garlands were perceived as a stimulus for religious contemplation, it seems likely - particularly in view of the artist's own religious convictions - that these small works were also intended for meditation, albeit on a more intimate and perhaps less overtly religious level. Lawrence Nichols has discussed the possibility that these 'pure' still-lifes were actually full of symbolic meaning (see L.W. Nichols, in the catalogue of the exhibition, The Age of Rubens, Ghent, 1994, p. 509). Thus, the metaphoric associations of the flowers in the present work may be seen to allude directly to those religious virtues associated with the Virgin: the white rose symbolic of purity, the pink rose of love, and the tulips, in this context, as symbols of virginity.