.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This painting, which probably dates to the second half of the 1610s, represents a rare fruit still life within the oeuvre of Ambrosius Bosschaert I. Only around fifty paintings by the artist are known, with all but a handful being floral still lifes. Bosschaert’s use of an elevated vantage point enabled him to carefully arrange each element of the composition so it can be seen individually. The artist appears to have favored this perspective in his other fruit still lifes, including his Grapes and cherries with a Wan Li bowl, now in a private collection (see L. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty: Painters of Flowers and Fruits, Leigh-on-Sea, 1980, p. 58, no. 1).
Fruits such as grapes and peaches would have been available to only the well-to-do in Holland during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, as their cultivation required that they be imported from warmer climates or grown locally in hot-houses. The sheer abundance of expensive fruits laden onto a costly Chinese export dish in Bosschaert’s painting, therefore, represents an image of marked luxury and conspicuous consumption. The precision and detail with which Bosschaert depicts the fruit can thus be seen as substituting his fictive fruits for the real thing. The painting, however, is not simply an image of luxury but, as is so often the case with Dutch still life painting, likely would have elicited symbolic associations for the painting’s affluent, educated viewers. Fruit, which spoiled quickly, was frequently regarded as an allusion to the brevity and transience of human life. Here, Bosschaert appears to allude to these ideas through the minor blemishes visible on some of the fruits, which serve to indicate their eventual decay.
Fruits such as grapes and peaches would have been available to only the well-to-do in Holland during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, as their cultivation required that they be imported from warmer climates or grown locally in hot-houses. The sheer abundance of expensive fruits laden onto a costly Chinese export dish in Bosschaert’s painting, therefore, represents an image of marked luxury and conspicuous consumption. The precision and detail with which Bosschaert depicts the fruit can thus be seen as substituting his fictive fruits for the real thing. The painting, however, is not simply an image of luxury but, as is so often the case with Dutch still life painting, likely would have elicited symbolic associations for the painting’s affluent, educated viewers. Fruit, which spoiled quickly, was frequently regarded as an allusion to the brevity and transience of human life. Here, Bosschaert appears to allude to these ideas through the minor blemishes visible on some of the fruits, which serve to indicate their eventual decay.