A Vanitas still-life with a bust, seashells, books, and glass flasks

Details

Dutch School, 17th Century
A Vanitas still-life with a bust, seashells, books, and glass flasks
oil on canvas
30¾ x 35¾ in. (78.2 x 90.8 cm.)

Provenance

Robert Frank, London, 1947, from whom purchased by the museum.

Exhibited

San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Illusion and Trompe l'Oeil, 1949, as Caesar van Everdingen.
Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie, La Nature Morte de l'Antiquité à nos Jours, p. 59, no. 40, 1952, as Caesar van Everdingen.
New York, Wildenstein, 6 November-13 December 1958, An Exhibition of Fifty Masterworks from the City Art Museum of St. Louis, pp. 11 and 37, no. 19, as attributed to Caesar van Everdingen.

Lot Essay

The present painting appears in the files of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorisches Documentatie, The Hague, as anonymous 17th-century Dutch School. Various unconvincing attributions to Simon de St. André, Simon Luttichuys, Caesar van Everdingen, and Joannes de Cordua have been associated with this painting in the past. The portrait print in the composition is freely based after Michiel van Mierevelt's portrait of the moralist and poet Jacob Cats, and the sphere in the top center of the composition is mainly found in Dutch paintings, so it is fair to assume that the painting is Dutch and not Flemish or French.

We are grateful to Mr. Fred Meijer of the RKD for his assistance in cataloguing this painting.

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