(Antwerp 1623 – after 1653)
A Kunstkammer with cards, shells, coral and a sculpture of a child,
oil on canvas, 34.5 x 44 cm, framed

Provenance:
European collection, Belgium

We are grateful to Fred Meijer for confirming the attribution on the basis of high-resolution photographs.

The present diverse and richly rendered assortment of objects, arrayed on a table covered in luxurious green and mauve velvet drapes, is a typically refined example of Antwerp still life painting, from the hand of one of the city’s most enigmatic masters, Christiaan Luycks. The crimson coral from the tropics, along with the China-trade lacquer chest to the right, offset by the delicate Italian figurine, reflect both Antwerp’s mercantile success and the general attendant air of Baroque exuberance. The trading hub’s wealthy collectors, and humanist thinkers, revelled in the treasures and natural phenomena brought from around the world, which they conserved in so-called ‘wunderkammers’ as evidenced here by varied tones of the seashells set on the table in the present picture. These works also played with concepts of perception, and so also the brilliance of painting as a liberal art, able to imitate and rival nature.

Also known as Carstian Luycks and originally simply known as the ‘Monogrammist KL’, the artist was a central painter of the Antwerp sub-genres of pronkstillevens, vanitas and hunting scenes. Trained under Frans Francken III and Philips de Marlier, Luycks later created collaborative works with David Teniers II, one the most renowned and versatile painters of his age, as in Kitchen still life with vase of flowers, dead birds, fish and a cat conserved in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.