.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
拍品專文
This luxurious and immaculately preserved still life is among the finest paintings by the artist to have appeared on the market in recent decades. On account of its exceptional quality, the two most important scholars of northern still-life painting in recent times, Fred G. Meijer and Sam Segal, have praised it variously as ‘the core work for the year 1649’ (see Meijer, op. cit., 2024, p. 210) and ‘a magnificent work’ (see Segal, op. cit., 1988, p. 152).
The painting reprises themes from an extraordinary group of four large-scale paintings that de Heem executed earlier in the decade. Two of these paintings are today at the Louvre (inv. no. 1321; fig. 1) and the Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles (inv. no. K.1878.5). A third is in a private collection, and the fourth was sold for a world auction record at Christie’s in London on 15 December 2020. Much like the present painting, the variety of textures and sheer number of expensive foods and objects the artist managed to compose within a relatively tight pictorial space offers the viewer an example of virtually everything de Heem was capable of and perhaps served as a calling card to display the range of his abilities.
De Heem’s meticulous, refined handling of paint in the present painting contrasts strikingly with his more broadly brushed works of 1647. A number of the still-life elements can, however, be found in other of de Heem’s paintings or associated with surviving examples, including the silver-gilt cup and cover, silver tazza and silk-covered box. An identical tazza, for example, reappears in a painting from the 1650s in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (fig. 2), while, as Segal has noted (op. cit.), the cup and cover is similar to one made by Friedrich Hirschvogel in Nuremberg around 1638. Similar pies with different crust designs likewise appear sporadically in de Heem’s still lifes of the 1640s and early 1650s, including in the aforementioned work sold in 2020. Other details, like the elaborate silver ewer at right, are unique to this painting. No similar ewer with swan-head spout surmounted by a seated putto, repoussé and chased neck with a grotesque mask and scroll handle with applied motif of Hercules and the Nemean Lion is known today, suggesting it may be de Heem’s own invention or, as Meijer has proposed (op. cit., p. 210), added at the behest of a patron.
De Heem’s refined approach and the painting’s exceptional state of preservation enable the appreciation of a number of small details cleverly reflected in the metal and glassware. The central boss of the silver-gilt cup shows the reverse of a painting on an easel, while certain still-life elements, a candlestick and books on a table can be made out in the mirror-like vacant cartouche of the ewer. Claudia Fritzsche perceptively pointed out that the artist himself can be seen in this cartouche (fig. 3; op. cit.). Additionally, though it has never before been pointed out in the literature, the windows reflected in the roemer also include a church spire (fig. 4), presumably that of the Cathedral in Antwerp where de Heem was then working.
This painting may be identical with the de Heem still life described simply as ‘Een Tafel vervult met Fruyten, en andere eetwaare’ in the 1722 posthumous sale of the leading Rotterdam collector and art dealer Jacques Meijers. Despite the generic description in the sale catalogue, it is the only known painting by de Heem whose size comports so closely with the dimensions provided in the catalogue: ‘h: 2 v: 5: duym, b: 3:v:6½ duym.’ Meijers was a Catholic collector who privileged quality over a focus on a specific school of painting. In addition to the Dutch and Flemish paintings one would expect from a Dutch collector of his generation, Meijers included sterling examples by a number of the best French and Italian artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the Italian works that appeared in the sale were paintings attributed to Caravaggio, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Meijers also owned no fewer than nine paintings given to Nicolas Poussin, including his Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii (Pasadena, CA, Norton Simon Museum) and Venus and Mercury (Dulwich Picture Gallery), and Claude’s The Sermon on the Mount (New York, The Frick Collection). Highlights of the Dutch and Flemish paintings include a pair by Gerrit Dou depicting women bathing (both St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum), ten paintings attributed to Peter Paul Rubens – the finest of which was the artist’s large-scale masterpiece depicting The Meeting of David and Abigail (fig. 5; Detroit Institute of Arts), which was previously in the collection of the Duke of Richelieu and Roger de Piles – and five works given to Anthony van Dyck.
Two somewhat reduced painted copies of this still life are known, one of which by Anthony Oberman (1781-1845). A seventeenth-century drawing, previously attributed to de Heem but recently rejected by Meijer (op. cit., p. 671, no. D R 07), was offered Sotheby’s, London, 4 July 2012, lot 115.
The painting reprises themes from an extraordinary group of four large-scale paintings that de Heem executed earlier in the decade. Two of these paintings are today at the Louvre (inv. no. 1321; fig. 1) and the Musée de la Ville de Bruxelles (inv. no. K.1878.5). A third is in a private collection, and the fourth was sold for a world auction record at Christie’s in London on 15 December 2020. Much like the present painting, the variety of textures and sheer number of expensive foods and objects the artist managed to compose within a relatively tight pictorial space offers the viewer an example of virtually everything de Heem was capable of and perhaps served as a calling card to display the range of his abilities.
De Heem’s meticulous, refined handling of paint in the present painting contrasts strikingly with his more broadly brushed works of 1647. A number of the still-life elements can, however, be found in other of de Heem’s paintings or associated with surviving examples, including the silver-gilt cup and cover, silver tazza and silk-covered box. An identical tazza, for example, reappears in a painting from the 1650s in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (fig. 2), while, as Segal has noted (op. cit.), the cup and cover is similar to one made by Friedrich Hirschvogel in Nuremberg around 1638. Similar pies with different crust designs likewise appear sporadically in de Heem’s still lifes of the 1640s and early 1650s, including in the aforementioned work sold in 2020. Other details, like the elaborate silver ewer at right, are unique to this painting. No similar ewer with swan-head spout surmounted by a seated putto, repoussé and chased neck with a grotesque mask and scroll handle with applied motif of Hercules and the Nemean Lion is known today, suggesting it may be de Heem’s own invention or, as Meijer has proposed (op. cit., p. 210), added at the behest of a patron.
De Heem’s refined approach and the painting’s exceptional state of preservation enable the appreciation of a number of small details cleverly reflected in the metal and glassware. The central boss of the silver-gilt cup shows the reverse of a painting on an easel, while certain still-life elements, a candlestick and books on a table can be made out in the mirror-like vacant cartouche of the ewer. Claudia Fritzsche perceptively pointed out that the artist himself can be seen in this cartouche (fig. 3; op. cit.). Additionally, though it has never before been pointed out in the literature, the windows reflected in the roemer also include a church spire (fig. 4), presumably that of the Cathedral in Antwerp where de Heem was then working.
This painting may be identical with the de Heem still life described simply as ‘Een Tafel vervult met Fruyten, en andere eetwaare’ in the 1722 posthumous sale of the leading Rotterdam collector and art dealer Jacques Meijers. Despite the generic description in the sale catalogue, it is the only known painting by de Heem whose size comports so closely with the dimensions provided in the catalogue: ‘h: 2 v: 5: duym, b: 3:v:6½ duym.’ Meijers was a Catholic collector who privileged quality over a focus on a specific school of painting. In addition to the Dutch and Flemish paintings one would expect from a Dutch collector of his generation, Meijers included sterling examples by a number of the best French and Italian artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Among the Italian works that appeared in the sale were paintings attributed to Caravaggio, Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Meijers also owned no fewer than nine paintings given to Nicolas Poussin, including his Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii (Pasadena, CA, Norton Simon Museum) and Venus and Mercury (Dulwich Picture Gallery), and Claude’s The Sermon on the Mount (New York, The Frick Collection). Highlights of the Dutch and Flemish paintings include a pair by Gerrit Dou depicting women bathing (both St. Petersburg, The State Hermitage Museum), ten paintings attributed to Peter Paul Rubens – the finest of which was the artist’s large-scale masterpiece depicting The Meeting of David and Abigail (fig. 5; Detroit Institute of Arts), which was previously in the collection of the Duke of Richelieu and Roger de Piles – and five works given to Anthony van Dyck.
Two somewhat reduced painted copies of this still life are known, one of which by Anthony Oberman (1781-1845). A seventeenth-century drawing, previously attributed to de Heem but recently rejected by Meijer (op. cit., p. 671, no. D R 07), was offered Sotheby’s, London, 4 July 2012, lot 115.