EDWAERT COLLIER | Trompe l'œil with a letter rack holding newspapers, letters, writing equipment and a comb

Anonymous sale, London, Robinson and Fisher, 7 May 1936, lot 37;

Evelyn Reynolds;

By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 16 November 1949, lot 52;

Mr Jonathan W. McCann;

By whom sold, New York, Christie's, 9 June 1978, lot 61;

Carl Schünemann, Bremen, by 1978, from whom acquired.

W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler und Zeichner des 17. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1980, vol. I, reproduced fig. 264;

G. Langemeyer et al., Stilleben in Europa, exh. cat., 1979, p. 502, cat. no. 261, reproduced in colour p. 504;

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 3 January 1980, p. 17, reproduced; and 10 May 1980;

Raupp 2004, pp. 94–97, cat. no. 15, reproduced in colour;

P. Huys-Janssen and S. ten Brink, Schijn bedriegt: Trompe-l'oeil en de kunst van illusie, exh. cat., Eindhoven 2013, pp. 44, 46, reproduced in colour.

Münster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum, 25 November 1979 – 24 February 1980; Baden Baden, Kunsthalle, 13 March – 15 June 1980, Stilleben in Europa, no. 261;

's-Hertogenbosch, Het Noordbrabants Museum, Schijn bedriegt: Trompe-l'oeil en de kunst van illusie, 12 October 2013 – 26 January 2014.

The SØR Rusche Collection has been exhibited extensively over the last two decades. Please click here for further information.

Edwaert Collier moved from The Netherlands to London in 1693, when Dutch taste was ascendant following the ascent of the Dutch monarchs William and Mary to the English throne, and was buried in St. James', Piccadilly in 1708, two years after he executed this painting. He had returned to Leiden between 1702–06, but it is unclear as to where the present work might have been painted: it combines a newspaper written in Dutch, a copy of Her Majesty's Speech in English, and a proudly-positioned signature using the English form of his name, but with a Dutch epithet, in the centre of the composition. Collier repeated this arrangement, with variations in the objects, in a number of paintings that testify to considerable demand from both Dutch and English markets. It is notable, however, that in his seminal survey of Dutch painting Walter Bernt chose the present work to exemplify the type (see Literature).