Georg Hinz

Georg Augustin Her zu Stubenberg, auff Würmberg, Regensbrug, in 1675;

Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 29 March 1968, lot 15 (as by Ottmar Elliger the Elder);

The Arcade Gallery, London (as by Ottmar Elliger the Elder);

Where acquired by Absjorn Lunde in 1968.

J. von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Edlen Bau-, Bild-and Mahlerey- Kunste, Nüremberg 1675, p. 314;

K. Bastian, Georg Hinz und sein Stillebenwerk, Hamburg 1984, no. WV 51, pl. 51;

C. Sterling, 'Four Flower Pots in a Niche', in European Painting, 16th-18th Century in the Menil Collection, 1987.

Nuremberg, German Nationalmuseum, Aufgang der Neuzeit, Deutsche Kunst, July-October 1952;

Münster and Baden-Baden, Stilleben in Europa, 1979-80, cat. no. 210, p. 398-399 and 561 (as by Tomas de Yepes).

While little is known about the life of Georg Hinz (sometimes spelt Hainz, Heintz or Hintz), his art has become better known since Karin Bastian wrote her 1984 doctoral thesis (Hamburg, 1984). It was Bastian who reattributed this imposing still life to this painter, born in northern Germany, whose works bear witness to the influence of classical Dutch still lifes, as well as to that of his predecessor Georg Flegel.

The painting was at first assigned to his compatriot Ottmar Elliger, and later – because of its deliberately frontal and hieratic, almost archaic composition – to the Spanish painter Tomas Yepes. But this ambitious composition is certainly the work of Hinz. The painting was in fact mentioned by Sandrart, in his Teutsche Akademie (1679, p. 314), as being – in 1675 – in the collection of Georg Augustin zu Stubenberg auf Warenberg in Regensburg: ‘Ein Apfelbaum in einem antichischen Geshirr von Heinz’.

This reference helps to date the canvas by providing a terminus ante quem. Karin Bastian also alludes, with good reason, to the influence of some of Jean Lepautre’s engravings, especially his series of decorated vases inspired by the designs of Claude Ballin, whose symmetry is sometimes comparable and whose motifs deriving from the antique, in relief on the vases’ bellies, are particularly close to Hinz’s vase. In fact, Hinz seems here to have directly borrowed two motifs of friezes featuring Tritons which were also engraved by Lepautre.