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Lot Essay
From now on, one does not have to travel to China, to cross so many seas, to speak with the Chinese in Bejing's impressive palaces; one does not have to search for the court of the sun, built by Vulcan, as it shines from Ovid's mind and books with glow and heavenly gold; the art never understood by the Chinese, never invented by Vulcan, can be found in full splendor at Van Rijswijck's house nearby.
In 1660 the celebrated Dutch poet Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) began a poem with these lines - having been inspired by a slate tabletop inlaid with mother-of-pearl that was made by his neighbor Dirck van Rijswijck (D. Kisluk-Grosheide, Dirck van Rijswijck (1596-1679), a Master of Mother-of-Pearl, in: Oud Holland, III - 1997, cat. no. XXXIII, pp. 141-142).
Obviously famous in his own day and collected by the merchant princes of the Netherlands, van Rijswijck’s panels only became more so in the late 17th and early 18th century as his work ended up in many of the great Kunstkammers of Central Europe, such as Augustus the Strong’s Green Vaults in Dresden and Frederick the Great’s Neues Palais in Potsdam.
Dazzling even today, this panel must have made an extraordinary impression on van Rijswijck’s contemporaries. From a distance, this panel might seem to be a well-executed and detailed, if rather monochromatic, 17th century Dutch still life. A closer look reveals a shimmering floral cascade made almost entirely of iridescent mother-of-pearl inlay. Lit by 17th century candles, the effect would have been mesmerizing. Van Rijswijck was known for his meticulously executed panels – Kisluk-Grosheide mentions he had been traditionally noted to have trained as a goldsmith, although little evidence of this can be found – and his attention to detail sets his work apart from any competitors.
And while the magnificent tulips and other flowers and the vanitas attributes along the base are straight out of Golden Age paintings, the materials here in the Getty panel also brings to mind the Dutch overseas empire by using exotic seashell inlay which in turn echoes the Japanese and Chinese lacquer being brought back to Amsterdam by Dutch traders.
While all of van Rijswijck’s panels are marvelous – the Getty panel is exceptional due to its enormous size. Most of van Rijswijck’s panels are far smaller. Yet the artist has not sacrificed his meticulous attention to detail but, due to its large size, the complex design and rich materials are even more amplified. One of the only panels that is larger than the Getty panel is the table top referenced above by van den Vondel and now in the collections of the Rijksmuseum (BK-NM-1916).
While the Breccia marble shelf or surface the vase rests on may be a later replacement, there is another van Rijswijck panel in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1986.21) that also depicts a vase of flowers resting on an identical Breccia marble surface. So, while unusual for van Rijswijck, this marble element may be original after all.