The Monogrammist 'B'

In the collection of the family of the present owners for at least three generations.

The support consists of a single oak panel, perfectly flat with a shallow bevel on all but the bottom edge. There has been some marginal abrasion, especially on the left hand side form recent movement in a frame, and the upper right hand corner is slightly chipped. The painting is now and covered with a thick layer of dulled glossy varnish, which impedes assessment under ultra-violet light. The still life itself appears to be in excellent condition, with almost all of the details perfectly intact. There is an old repaired loss about 0.5 x 1 cm. just to the right of the dish, and the area around this has been restored, including the rim and edge of the pewter plate, the pear above and its reflections beneath. There is an old area of restored loss of c. 3 x 6 cm. in the lower right hand corner, and there are small signs of very early lifting paint here. There has been some restoration to the table top, for example the shadows and the left hand side, and to a lesser degree to the background. This lot is sold unframed.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This intriguing panel, dated 1574 and signed beneath with the monogram ‘B’, would appear to be amongst the first independent still-lifes painted in oil in Europe. Antecedents in oil paint are scant – the few works painted by Ludger tom Ring in remote Münster in the early 1560s are the best-known – as the early protagonists of the genre worked in bodycolour on vellum and from works printed in woodcut and engraving for Natural History books. The upsurge in interest in the natural world in the second half of the 16^th century arose in response to the Reformation and was fed by developments in optics, the scholarly activities of botanists such as Clusius in Leiden, and the importation of exotic species from distant lands through Netherlandish ports. A work of such lowly subject-matter as this would have been inconceivable before Luther’s Reformation and it is a measure of how much northern Europe changed in just a few decades that still-life painting would quickly become not just a genre of painting in itself but, at times, the most popular genre of all.

The monogram and the date on this panel are contemporary with the age of the single oak plank on which they are painted. A tree-ring analysis conducted by Ian Tyers of Dendrochronological Consultancy Ltd shows that the single board on which the still-life is painted was derived from a tree that was still growing in 1556, somewhere in the eastern Baltic area of Europe. The board was not derived from a tree that has yet been identified in any other panel. Taking the seven sapwood rings present in the panel and assuming typical amounts of sapwood were originally present when the tree was felled, the likely felling date for this panel is between circa 1557 and 1573.¹ 

Oak from the eastern Baltic was used fairly widely but was particularly popular in the Low Countries and the appearance of this thinly-planed panel, with a shallow bevel along three of the four margins, is quintessentially Flemish in look and feel. If the painter is Flemish, which seems likely, though by no means certain, this would represent the earliest-dated Flemish (or Dutch) still-life in oil, and the earliest-dated fruit still-life from anywhere in Europe. It is not easy to draw on any comparable works from the period as no dated examples seem to have survived but it may be that in the future, as more oak panels are subjected to dendrochronological analysis, a group of early independent still-lifes of this type begins to emerge.

1. Report no. 784, July 2015. A copy of the report is available upon request and will be supplied to the buyer.