A Dutch Mother-of-Pearl and Penwork Panel, Second Half 17th Century, by Dirck van Rijswijck

Christie's London, 4 July 2017, lot 156;

Where acquired by Aso O. Tavitian.

The ingenious use of subtle differences between the colouring of mother-of-pearl shells to create shimmering, almost unreal still lives was only practiced to this level of excellence by one marqueter, and that was Dirck van Rijswijck (1596–1679). Born in Kleve and after a decade’s training as a goldsmith in Antwerp, he settled in Amsterdam around 1630. It took some time for him to move from more typical gold and silver work to the highly original use of mother-of-pearl marquetry for which he would become so well-known, and this is unsurprising given the challenges of the material: not only is the supply scarce, and the nuances of tone more subtle than in the stained woods or hardstones usually used for marquetry during the period, but there are also fewer tools in the marqueter’s arsenal to create depth and add complexity to a composition. The typical technique for marquetry in wood, for instance, is to dip the pieces in hot sand to darken certain areas to create shading; to imitate shadows and create depth in his compositions, van Rijswijck developed an alternative style that employed cross-hatching with lines that were then darkened with a charcoal and wax mixture (D. Kisluk-Grosheide, ‘Dirck van Rijswijck (1596-1679), a Master of Mother-of-Pearl’, in Oud Holland, 1997, 111 no.2, p.81).

Panels by van Rijswijck are rare survivors but are well-documented and, helpfully, they consistently incorporate inscriptions. Panels with floral still-lives in vases can be found in various sizes, with dazzling large-scale panels of around 87 by 61cm found in Dresden’s Green Vault (III 175) and on the door of a cabinet sold Sotheby’s London, 1 November 2002, lot 26. Smaller rectangular panels closer to the dimensions of the present lot can be found on display in Gallery 551 of the Metropolitan Museum (1986.21), in the Rijksmuseum (BK-KOG-1539) and in the Victoria & Albert Museum (A.25-1928) and (A.26-1928). The subject of a bountiful floral bouquet is taken from Dutch still lives of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and as in the popular genre in painting, there is an undercurrent of a memento mori message lying beneath these spectacular mother-of-pearl blooms. Also known as the vanitas motif, the fact that short-lived flowers are shown in various stages of bloom, including several that are visibly wilting, serves to remind the viewer of the transience of beauty, life and all things. This is even more apparent in the compositions where van Rijswijck includes a skull amidst the insects or other objects on the surface at the bottom of the marquetry panel, as he does for the panel on the cabinet sold at Sotheby’s in 2002.

A mother-of-pearl panel of similar dimensions and signed D.v. Ryswyck invenit et fecit recently appeared at auction at Sotheby's Cologne, December 5 2024, lot 1027 and sold for the remarkable price of €144,000.