Abraham Mignon Frankfurt 1640 - 1679 Utrecht

With Galerie Georges de Jonckheere, Paris, 2000;
Acquired from the above 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 has had a recent lining and stretcher and recent restoration which left a thin film of older varnish quite wisely in parts, visible under UV. The almost immaculate condition is exceptional, even for such a highly esteemed painting that has clearly always been treated with the utmost care. There is a recent slight knock at the upper left extreme edge by the corner. The only retouching, which is discreet and minimal, is down the left edge in the dark rocks, with slight thinness in the mouse at upper centre where there is one little retouching. Elsewhere throughout the delicate finish and minute detail is exquisitely intact. The rose madder glaze in the rose almost never survives but is here only very slightly thin, and the resinous yellow of the iris has slightly altered over time, but these are minimal imperfections. The outer edges of the poppy petals show faint pentimenti. The extreme finesse of the brushwork and rich unworn depths of luminosity and colour are perfectly preserved virtually throughout. 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."

This exceptionally well-preserved still life is one of Abraham Mignon's most impressive paintings and counts itself amongst his largest and most ambitious compositions. The grotto motif is one that he returned to on a number of occasions, presumably because of the highly successful fusion of still-life and landscape elements. The majority of these works are in portrait format, however, and only rarely did Mignon venture into a large landscape format; one other such example, of approximately the same size as the present work, is in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum,¹ but in that painting Mignon places a cliff face in front of the grotto opening and therefore eliminates the immense sense of depth that he achieves instead in the present work. In both paintings Mignon employs the grotto wall at the left as a repoussoir device to achieve greater depth and, with it, density and volume of subject matter. The still lifes in the two works are remarkably similar and, as is typical throughout the artist's oeuvre, several elements recur in both; the dominant red poppy, the yellow iris and the rearmost frog, for example.

This work can be dated to circa 1670 when Mignon was at his most creative and, while still demonstrating the influence of his master Jan Davidsz. de Heem, whose workshop he ran after 1672, it is clearly inspired by the game and insect-pieces that Willem van Aelst (1627-1683) and Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1619-1678) brought back from Italy. For a brief biography of the artist, please see the note to lot 41.

This painting will be included in the forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné on Mignon being prepared by Dr. Magdalena Kraemer-Noble.

1  See M. Kraemer-Noble, Abraham Mignon, Leigh-on-Sea 1973, p. 20, no. A22, reproduced as frontispiece.