Jan van Os Middelharnis 1744 - 1808 The Hague

Private collection, Europe;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Gentleman'), London, Christie's, 7 July 1995, lot 19; 
With Richard Green, London, 1995;
From whom acquired by the present owner.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a perfectly flat bevelled oak panel, which has clearly never moved. The craquelure is scarcely noticeable and the extraordinary technique has enabled the painting to age almost unchanged. The varnish may be synthetic, which tends to give a faintly photographic finish and minimise depth, but the tonality here is also characteristically light tending towards watercolour. The very fine condition has preserved each perfect drop of dew and tendril or curl of a leaf, with just slightly thin glazing in the shadows of the yellow flowers at upper centre and one or two microscopic legs lost by the fly. There is no retouching at all apart from one tiny scratch touched in at the top edge by the central leaf. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Van Os was the leading Dutch painter of still lifes during the second half of the eighteenth century. He was profoundly influenced by his countryman Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) and continued the tradition of opulent and minutely-observed flower and fruit still lifes begun by him at the very beginning of the century. Van Os began his career, however, as a painter of landscapes and seascapes, only turning to still lifes in 1765.¹  This exquisite piece, in which the artist employs his usual pyramidal structure on an asymmetrical axis, is a mature work and was painted in the 1780s.

Van Os trained under Aart Schoman (1710-1792) in The Hague but was born in Middelharnis, a town a short distance to the south. He was elected to the painter’s club Pictura in 1773 and in 1775 he married the deaf-mute portraitist Susanna de la Croix by whom he had a son, Georgius Jacobus (1782-1861), who followed closely in his father’s footsteps by painting flower and fruit pieces. Jan van Os' daughter Maria Margaretha (1780-1862) was also a renowned still-life painter.

1  His first dated still life of 1765 was in the collection of Mrs. W. Tegelberg, Holland; see P. Mitchell, Jan van Os, Leigh-on-Sea 1968, p. 24, cat. no. 34, reproduced plate 34.