Osias Beert the Elder

Dr C. Benedict;

Gaston Peltzer, Verviers, Belgium, 1965;

With H. Terry-Engell, London, 1973, no. 2 (when advertised in Weltkunst, vol. XLIII, 1 October 1973, no. 19);

From whom acquired by a private collector, England;

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 7 July 1989, lot 50, for £242,000 to Amell;

With Newhouse Galleries and Verner Amell, New York, until July 1993;

From whom acquired for the Grasset Collection.

'Un amateur de peinture ancienne vous montre les fleurs de sa collection', in Connaissance des Arts, no. 157, March 1965, pp. 74 and 76, reproduced in colour p. 78;

E. Greindl, Les peintres flamands de nature morte au XVIIe siècle, Sterrebeek 1983, p. 336, no. 56;

M.L. Hairs, The Flemish Flower Painters in the XVIIth century, Brussels 1985, pp. 340 and 457;

F.G. Meijer, Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, exh. cat., San Diego 2016, pp. 9–10;

S. Thomas, A Feast for the Eyes, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, exh. cat., Saint Petersburg, Florida 2019, pp. 28 and 95, no. 8, reproduced in colour.

San Diego, The San Diego Museum of Art, Brueghel to Canaletto, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, 2 April – 2 August 2016;

Saint Petersburg, Florida, Museum of Fine Arts, A Feast for the Eyes, European Masterpieces from the Grasset Collection, 23 March – 2 September 2019, no. 8.

This bouquet comprises a great variety of exotic species, which would have been imported into the Netherlands; these include anemones, narcissi, cyclamens, nigella and checkered lilies, as well as a range of tulips. They are held in a German stoneware vase, before which crawls a caterpillar, along with a butterfly and a dragonfly. A trompe l'œil effect is created by the butterfly clinging to the edge of the niche on the left, and another that has landed on the outside wall, upper right. The temporary presence of these insects, and the fallen petals on the edge of the niche, not to mention the chewed rose leaves at the bottom of the composition, their holes rendered all the more obvious against the dark background, evoke the theme of vanitas, which belies so many Netherlandish still-life paintings from this period.

The vase and disposition of the flowers here find many analogies in the left-most part of the Still life of flowers in four containers, also from the Grasset Collection, sold in these Rooms, 7 December 2022, lot 20 (for £882,000, incl. premium).¹ Although Beert painted a number of individual flowerpieces in vases, this is one of only a few examples that are set in stone niches. Another such painting is the densely-packed glass vase with flowers in a niche, of a probably slightly earlier date from the early 1610s, in the Museum Rockoxhuis, Antwerp.² The present painting, however, appears to have been painted with fewer glazes, which have also thinned somewhat over time.

Juan Manuel Grasset collected several paintings by Beert and came to know the artist's work well, resulting in his being the first to identify two pictures – one in the Museo del Prado (inv. no. 1606), the other in the Palacio Real, Madrid (inv. no. 701) – as two halves of the same original work.

¹ https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/old-masters-evening-auction/still-life-of-tulips-and-an-apothecarys-rose-in-a-2

² https://rkd.nl/explore/images/14590