(active in Paris in the mid-17th century)
Still life with a peach and plums,
oil on canvas, 31.3 x 36.3 cm, framed

We are grateful to Dr Albertino Cottino for identifying the present painting as an autograph work by Liégeois. A comprehensive certificate is available.

This intimate, small still life has been formerly attributed to a French artist influenced by Willem van Aelst. Both Pierre Dupuis and the almost unknown Jean Garnier have been suggested as potential authors. A very similar signed still life of compararable size by Garnier was auctioned at Freemans, Philadelphia, on 7 October 2011 and was successively in the ownership of Bob Haboldt. Alberto Cottino could confirm the present painting as a work by Liégeois, a name that was also put forward by other art historians. As Cottino argues in his comprehensive certificate, Liégeois, like of his contemporaries, made the acquaintance of Willem van Aelst during the latter’s stay in Paris in 1649-1650. Aelst influenced not only a whole generation of French painters of still lifes, but in many cases he also collaborated with them as in the Still life with plums and peaches he painted together with Piccart (Amsterdam, Roelofsz art dealer, 1996). Liégeois belonged to the large group of Protestant artists who had settled in Saint German des Prés and was evidently familiar with works of Louise Moillons, Jacques Linards and Lubin Baugins. His technique reveals a Flemish training, whilst his sober realism, which is also visible in the present work, has a clearly French character. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not arrange fruits in his still lifes according to decorative principles, but rather as if naturally and casually observed. Very similar works are preserved in Besançon, Musée des Beaux Arts, and in Dijon, Musée Beaux Arts.