Jean-Baptiste van Moerkercke

With crossbanded divided rectangular top incut at the angles and intricately inlaid in stained and engraved woods with a landscape depicting figures and barnyard animals in a village on a river, a classical sculpture in the foreground, and enclosing a central hinged dressing glass and two lidded wells inlaid with classical urns centering a recessed panel inlaid with scattered books, above a panelled frieze mounted with entrelac incorporating a velvetlined slide above three drawers inlaid with village landscapes surrounding a kneehold, the sides and back similarly inlaid and mounted on square tapering legs with ormolu block sabots.

Anonymous sale, Monaco, Sotheby's, 18 June 1992, lot 44, where acquired.

J. de Maere & M. Wabbes, Illustrated dictionary of 17th century Flemish painters, Brussels 1994, vol. 3, p. 834, reproduced;
A. van der Willigen & F. G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 144.

Only a few works are known to exist by Jean-Baptiste van Moerkercke, a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Ghent from 1659-1666.  As he is known as a painter of religious scenes and portraits, this luscious still life of  various musical instruments and elaborate metal objects is a rarer addition to his known body of work

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer of the RKD/The Hague for confirming this attribution on the basis of photographs.  He notes that the artist appears to have signed his paintings JB Moerkercke (with JB in ligature).  He believes that in the present work the J and the lower portion of the B have been rendered indistinct, and he is aware of another example in the artist's body of work where the lower belly of the B has become obscured.