NICOLAS BAUDESSON | A STILL LIFE OF A BASKET FILLED WITH FLOWERS

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 14 January 1988, lot 86A (as Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer);

There acquired.

Nicolas Baudesson, active in the generation before Monnoyer, was one of the earliest practitioners of the still life genre in France. As a young man, he traveled to Italy, where, according to Florent le Comte, he studied with a celebrated flower-painter, Mario Nuzzi, called Mario dei Fiore.¹ On 26 May 1671 he entered the Académie in Paris. 

In this painting, Baudesson uses contrasts of light and shadow to capture a variety of flowers with rhythmical unity. By setting the flowers against a stark background, he highlights their vibrant and bold colors. While Baudesson drew inspiration for his compositions from contemporary Northern artists, he distinguished himself from them by placing a larger focus on the cohesive tonal harmony of the blooming colors rather than on the minute details. It was with such cohesive bouquets as the present that he achieved fame throughout Europe, even attracting the attention of King Louis XIV, who assembled a number of the artist's works at the Château de Versailles. The same cluster of white lilies near the upper edge of the painting also appear in a painting by Baudesson recently sold in these rooms on 24 April 2018, lot 10.² 

We are grateful to Dr. Fred Meijer for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs.

1. M. Faré, La grand siècle de la nature morte en France, le XVIIe siècle, Fribourg and Paris, 1976, p. 280.

2. Oil on canvas, 45.7 by 36.2 cm.