Jan van Huysum (Amsterdam 1682-1749)

Roses, morning glory, narcissi, aster, and other flowers in a basket, with eggs in a nest on a marble ledge

Details

Jan van Huysum (Amsterdam 1682-1749)
Roses, morning glory, narcissi, aster, and other flowers in a basket, with eggs in a nest on a marble ledge
signed and dated 'Jan Van Huysum fecit 1744' (lower centre)
oil on panel
10 x 7 in. (26 x 19.5 cm.)

Provenance

King Michael of Romania, Switzerland.
with H. Terry Engell Gallery, London, 1973 (catalogue, 1973, no. 9a, illustrated).
with S. Nystad Gallery, The Hague (Delft Prinsenhof Museum, Art Fair, Summer, 1974, p. 42).
Private collection.
with L. & D. Koetser Gallery, Zurich, from whom acquired by the present owner in the early 1970s.

Literature

C. Hofstede de Groot, Verzeichnis der Werke, etc., X, Stuttgart, 1928, p. 369, no. 158.
M.H. Grant, Jan van Huysum 1682-1749, Leigh-on-Sea, 1954, p. 25, no. 119.
F. Meijer, Stillevens uit de Gouden Eeuw/Still life paintings from the Golden Age, Boijmans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, 1989, under no. 20, note 3 (Dutch text note 2).
S. Segal, Flowers and Nature. Netherlandish Flower Painting of Four Centuries, The Hague, 1990, pp. 242-243, no. 68, illustrated.

Exhibited

Osaka, Nabio Museum of Art, 20 April-16 May 1990, no. 68.
Tokyo, Station Gallery, 2 June-28 August 1990.
Sydney, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, 4 September-28 October 1990.

Lot Essay

This is one of Jan van Huysum's last and most intimate flower pieces. Much like Rachel Ruysch, he painted several pictures of small format in his later life, including a flower piece and a fruit piece in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (nos. 71 and 70). Segal, loc. cit., suggests that a drawing of a basket of flowers of 1733 (with Arnoldi-Livie, Munich in 1988) might have been preparatory to the present picture.

We are grateful to Mr. Fred Meijer for confirming the attribution of this picture (oral communication, 22 April 1999).

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