(Antwerp 1601–1678)
A still life with a gilded tazza, a floral garland, a jewel box, a vase of flowers, and a squirrel,
oil on panel, 48 x 67 cm, framed

Provenance:

sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 7 April 1989, lot 114;
with Lampronti, Rome, 1989

We are grateful to Klaus Ertz for confirming the present painting to be an autograph work by Jan Brueghel II on the basis of his inspection in the original. The painting is accompanied by a certificate. Ertz dates the present painting to the 1630s.

Ertz writes: “In this exquisitely and masterfully rendered flower painting, Jan Brueghel the Younger proves that he was able to meet his father’s high standards like few other painters of his time." The reduced shape of the blossoms in the son’s paintings represents a new development: the number of blossoms has been cut down while the blossoms themselves have grown larger and have been assigned equal importance. In these compositions from the 1630s and even more so in those from the 1640s, the artist gave preference to flatness over volume, as is noticeable in the powerful colour accents placed side by side and the rug-like impression given by the floral arrangement. By that time the artist had evolved into an autonomous painter who nevertheless perfectly knew how to combine old ideas with new forms and thus create something new and independent.

In order to corroborate a date of execution of the present painting to the 1630s, Ertz compares it to the following compositions:

1) Still life with goblet and jewel box, Solingen, Galerie Müllenmeister, panel, 47.5 x 66.5 cm;
2) Still life with flowers in a vase, Pasadena, The Norton Simon Museum, panel, 53.3 x 52.5 cm;
3) Still life with a basket of flowers, Paris, Gal. d’Art St. Honoré panel, 52 x 82 cm