OTTO MARSEUS VAN SCHRIECK | Still life with flowers in a glass vase, on a marble ledge, with butterflies and moths

Anonymous sale, Berlin, Leo Spik, 9 November 1950, lot 273;

With F. Enneking, Amsterdam, 1955;

Krudop, Enschede;

Anonymous sale, Laren, Christie’s, 24 March 1980, lot 436A, when acquired.

L.J. Bol, "Geode Onbekenden" Hedendaagse herkenning en waardering van verscholen, vorbijggezein en onderschat talent, Utrecht 1982, p. 98, reproduced fig. 3;

E. Gemar-Költzch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, vol. III, Lingen 1995, p. 924, cat. no. 362/2, reproduced;

S. Steensma, Otto Marseus van Schrieck, Leben und Werk, Hildesheim 1999, p. 103, cat. no. A1.5, reproduced p. 265, fig. 5;

Raupp 2004, pp. 170–73, cat. no. 35, reproduced in colour;

Rotterdam 2008, p. 90, cat. no. 81, reproduced in colour;

G. Seelig, Medusa's Menagerie. Otto Marseus van Schrieck and the Scholars, exh. cat., Munich 2017, p. 60, reproduced in colour p. 61, fig. 43.

Rotterdam 2008, no. 81;

Schwerin, Staatliches Museum, 7 July – 15 October 2017; Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, 5 November 2017 – 11 March 2018, Medusa's Menagerie. Otto Marseus van Schrieck and the scholars, unnumbered.

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

The earliest known works by van Schrieck are still lifes of flowers such as the present painting. Despite it being a subject he would embrace until the last decade of his life, there are far fewer of them than his forest floor still lifes, and they rarely appear on the art market. The present painting was in all probability painted in Italy, and dates to the same year as the artist's forest floor still life with the same blue morning glories today in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin (inv. no. G154).(1)

1 Seelig 2017, reproduced in colour p. 191, fig. 153.