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Lot Essay
Although born in Frankenthal on the Rhine, Jacob Marrel is considered one of the greatest masters of the Utrecht and Frankfurt schools of still life painting, and the key link between the legacy of the Bosschaert dynasty on the one hand and the Flemish tradition of de Heem and Seghers on the other. He moved to Frankfurt in 1627 at the age of 13 where he was apprenticed to Georg Flegel and where Joachim von Sandrart records his eagerness and precosity (see A.R. Peltzer, Joachim von Sandrarts Akademie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey-Künste von 1675, 1925, p. 220). By the early 1630's Marrel had moved to Utrecht. Although he was now a pupil of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, he came under the direct influence of the Bosschaert family of painters as well as Roelandt Savery, who had returned to Utrecht after the death of Rudolf II in Prague.
Anemones, fully open, face-on and dominating the centre of the bouquet, frequently appear in Marrel's paintings. Cherries are another recurring element (here they are Morello cherries), perhaps a play on Marrel's name. The tulip at top right is a striking specimen, a Violette of the Viceroy type. At the left is an opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, source of one of the few effective medicines of the seventeenth century. At the back of the bouquet, which is spotlit from the front, Marrel uses sprigs of dill to exquisite decorative effect. Like Roelandt Savery, by whom he was influenced, Marrel uses a lizard and insects to enliven his painting. On the ledge are a sand lizard (Lacerta agilis) and a seven-spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), while a pond damsel fly (Lestes sponsa) alights on a lower leaf.
This charming small work shares several elements with a much larger (34 x 22½ in.; 87.5 x 57.5 cm.) painting on copper dated 1650 (formerly with Newhouse Galleries, New York), including the glass vase with beaded foot set in a niche, the striped anemone at the centre and a number of very similar flowers. Fred Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistoriche Documentatie, The Hague, considers that the combination of strong chiaroscuro, relatively large blooms in a compact bouquet and meticulous, smooth handling confirms the attribution and suggests a date for the painting in the late 1640s or early 1650s.
Anemones, fully open, face-on and dominating the centre of the bouquet, frequently appear in Marrel's paintings. Cherries are another recurring element (here they are Morello cherries), perhaps a play on Marrel's name. The tulip at top right is a striking specimen, a Violette of the Viceroy type. At the left is an opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, source of one of the few effective medicines of the seventeenth century. At the back of the bouquet, which is spotlit from the front, Marrel uses sprigs of dill to exquisite decorative effect. Like Roelandt Savery, by whom he was influenced, Marrel uses a lizard and insects to enliven his painting. On the ledge are a sand lizard (Lacerta agilis) and a seven-spotted ladybird (Coccinella septempunctata), while a pond damsel fly (Lestes sponsa) alights on a lower leaf.
This charming small work shares several elements with a much larger (34 x 22½ in.; 87.5 x 57.5 cm.) painting on copper dated 1650 (formerly with Newhouse Galleries, New York), including the glass vase with beaded foot set in a niche, the striped anemone at the centre and a number of very similar flowers. Fred Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistoriche Documentatie, The Hague, considers that the combination of strong chiaroscuro, relatively large blooms in a compact bouquet and meticulous, smooth handling confirms the attribution and suggests a date for the painting in the late 1640s or early 1650s.