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拍品專文
This previously unrecorded picture, which has not been seen in public for well over 100 years, is a significant addition to the known oeuvre of Balthasar van der Ast. It joins a select number of small-scale flower still lifes featuring a chinese porcelain vase, which can be considered amongst the artist's earliest pure flower paintings. Other examples (all on panel and of similar dimensions), include the picture in the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen (inv. no. GK.19); the picture of 1622 in the P.& N. de Boer Foundation (on permanent loan to the Noordbrabants Museum, 's-Hertogenbosch), and the still-life of 1623 in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. A530; see F.G. Meijer, The Ashmolean Museum, Catalogue of Dutch and Flemish still life paintings bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, Zwolle, 2003, pp. 158-9, no. 7, illustrated).
Fred Meijer of the RKD, to whom we are grateful, deems this 'an absolutely excellent example of the artist's work', and suggests a date of circa 1623 presumably on the basis of its close relationship with the Oxford picture. The two works reveal the pervading influence of Van der Ast's brother-in-law and teacher, Ambrosius Bosschaert I, both in terms of the elements depicted and their small-scale, compact format. In this, he seems to have been inspired by the elder artist's mature output from circa 1619-20; in particular, the copper of 1619 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-1522), and an undated still life (sold, Sotheby's, London, 4 July 1990, lot 31), after which Van der Ast made a straight copy (present location unknown, see F. Meijer, op. cit., p. 159, fig. 7.1). Van der Ast's inclusion of meticulously rendered redcurrants and other fruit on the ledge marked a departure from his teacher, as did the realistically depicted animals and insects - in this case two butterflies, a dragonfly and a lizard - which may have been inspired by the work of Roelandt Savery.
Fred Meijer of the RKD, to whom we are grateful, deems this 'an absolutely excellent example of the artist's work', and suggests a date of circa 1623 presumably on the basis of its close relationship with the Oxford picture. The two works reveal the pervading influence of Van der Ast's brother-in-law and teacher, Ambrosius Bosschaert I, both in terms of the elements depicted and their small-scale, compact format. In this, he seems to have been inspired by the elder artist's mature output from circa 1619-20; in particular, the copper of 1619 in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-1522), and an undated still life (sold, Sotheby's, London, 4 July 1990, lot 31), after which Van der Ast made a straight copy (present location unknown, see F. Meijer, op. cit., p. 159, fig. 7.1). Van der Ast's inclusion of meticulously rendered redcurrants and other fruit on the ledge marked a departure from his teacher, as did the realistically depicted animals and insects - in this case two butterflies, a dragonfly and a lizard - which may have been inspired by the work of Roelandt Savery.