A Vanitas Still Life with a Roemer, a guttering Candle, Pies on a pewter Plate, a burning Taper, a Cork, Tobacco and a clay Pipe on a wooden Table

Details

Sebastian Stosskopff* (1597-1657)
A Vanitas Still Life with a Roemer, a guttering Candle, Pies on a pewter Plate, a burning Taper, a Cork, Tobacco and a clay Pipe on a wooden Table
oil on canvas
16¾ x 23in. (42.5 x 58.2cm.)

Provenance

Alfred Ritleng, 1906.
G. Bernier, Paris.
with Thos. Agnews and Son, London, 1980.
with E.V. Thaw, New York.

Literature

R. Forrer, Les Antiquités, les tableaux et les objets d'art de la collection Alfred Ritleng á Strasbourg, 1906, no. 1018, note 27.
M. Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France: Le XVIIe Siècle, 1974, p. 130.
B. Hahn-Woernle, Sebastian Stoskopff, 1996, pp. 238-9, no. 56, illustrated in color.

Lot Essay

The present work is comparable to the Breakfast with rolled wafers in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, which is dated by Birgit Hahn-Woernle from the artist's first sojourn in Paris, and painted circa 1625-30 (B. Hahn-Woernle, op. cit., p. 238). However, the purer and more economical style of the present work, suggests a later date of circa 1640, shortly after his return to Strasbourg from his second stay in Paris. Hahn-Woernle notes the painting's deliberately refined simplicity and its dryer application of color, setting it apart from his earlier style.