Jacques Linard

Gaspar Remisa Miarons (1784–1847), 1st Marquis of Remisa, Madrid, by 1846;

Private collection, Madrid;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Sotheby's, 16 June 2016, lot 25, for €113,400;

Where acquired by the present owner.

Listed in the 1846 inventory of the collection of Gaspar Remisa Miarons (‘261 Escuela flamenca. Tabla. Frutero con uvas; original de Wanquesers. Tiene de alto un pie y ocho pulgadas, y de ancho dos y dos pulgadas’).

This elegant still life is a characteristic work by Jacques Linard, a pioneer of still-life painting in France in the first half of the seventeenth century. Very little is known about this elusive artist; he was received as Master in Paris in 1626 and appointed ‘Peintre et Valet de Chambre du Roi’ in 1631 (the same date as this work), suggesting a fairly rapid degree of recognition for his work.¹ Despite this, his work is now rare, with fewer than fifty paintings by him currently known, dated from 1624 to 1644. As evidenced in this composition, his style was influenced by the works of contemporary Netherlandish painters such as Jacob van Hulsdonck and Balthasar van der Ast, and is marked by a very particular delicacy of execution, coupled with an elegant austerity of composition, memorably described by Pierre Rosenberg as a ‘poésie mélancolique’.²

Set against a dark background, bunches of black and green grapes laid onto vine leaves are depicted in a gilded dish on a table. The surface of the plate serves to heighten the verisimilitude and lustrous rendering of the soft skins of the grapes, which contrast with the crisp, veined vine leaves employed by Linard to give a sense of three-dimensionality and to balance the whole arrangement. The whole is animated by a butterfly fluttering upper left. This motif appears to have been favoured by the artist and appears in a comparable composition in a private collection, also signed and dated 1631.³

Note on Provenance

As indicated by the inscription lower right, this painting formed part of the collection of Gaspar Remisa Miarons (1784–1847), 1st Marquis of Remisa, one of the most successful Spanish businessmen of the 19^th century. The inventory of his collection records this work as hanging in the ante-room of the Marquis's study and includes over 330 pictures, among them a Crucifixion by Luis de Morales and Christ presented to the People by Quinten Massys, both now in the collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.⁴

¹ For the most recent reconstruction of Linard’s career see M. Szanto, ‘Pour Jacques Linard, peintre de natures mortes (Troyes 1597–Paris 1645)’, in Bulletin de la Societé de l’Histoire de L’Art français, 2001, pp. 25–61.

² P. Rosenberg in La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections americaines, exh. cat., Paris, New York and Chicago 1982, p. 275.

³ Oil on canvas; 43 x 62 cm.; reproduced in P. Nusbaumer, Jacques Linard 1597–1645. Catalogue de l’œuvre peint, Le Pecq-sur-Seine, pp. 44–45, no. 7.

⁴ https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-crucifixion/3ea8f0ef-090b-4010-b88b-f7f17d937b09?searchMeta=collection%20of%20gaspar%20de%20remisa%20miaron; https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/christ-presented-to-the-people/327bed20-74b8-4d08-9bb9-f173ca023ee9?searchMeta=collection%20of%20gaspar%20de%20remisa%20miaron.