Balthasar van der Ast

Comte Briand, Les Pavillions d'Ernée, 12 February 1884 (according to a label on the verso);

Hendrik Piek-Ditmar (1879-1950), The Hague;

Thence by inheritance to his wife, Wilhelmina Hendrika Piek-van Ditmar (1881-1968), The Hague;

Sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 9 May 1952, lots 80 and 81, for 350,000 ff;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 July 1986, lot 161;

Where acquired by David Koester, Zurich;

From whom acquired by Hans and Marion König, 1986.

L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty, Painters of Flowers and Fruits, Leigh-on-Sea 1960, pp. 76, 80, cat. nos. 53, 80;

M. Dlugaiczyk in Die Stilleben des Balthasar van der Ast (1593/94 - 1657), exhibition catalogue, M. Imhof Verlaf (ed.), Petersberg 2016, pp. 178-180, cat nos. 29 a-b, reproduced.

Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, More Beautiful than Nature: The Still Lifes of Balthasar van der Ast (1593/94-1657), 10 March - 5 June 2016, nos. 29a-b.

These simple but beautifully observed still lifes are wonderful examples of Van der Ast’s virtuosity on a small scale. In the first, a group of shells, each of varying color, style, texture and design, is placed on a ledge while a fly buzzes overhead and a caterpillar steadily moves along in the foreground. The second features a single variegated tulip placed diagonally across a spring of slightly withered honeysuckle, upon which a butterfly carefully balances. A shell lies in the foreground while a fly sits to the left of the flowers. In both paintings, a soft light bathes the composition from above, allowing the shadows of the objects to add depth to the composition while accentuating the varying textures and sheens of the flora and fauna.

Although the objects may seem casually arranged, they are, in fact, carefully placed to create a balanced and naturalistic impression. In both paintings the vantage point is quite low and the picture plane cuts off the front edge of the table. Van der Ast is showing off his superb skill in drafting a composition with simple yet steadfast lines and a lovely mix of color— the tiny red details of the shell in the foreground of the latter painting and the soft, warm stripes of the tulip in the first seem to warmly illuminate the compositions entirely.

Van der Ast was taught by his brother-in-law Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573-1621), the pioneering flower painter of the first decades of the seventeenth century. Works such as the present pair, in which a few blooms or shells are placed on a ledge with flying insects, are Van der Ast's own innovation. The personality of each flower and shell is brought out by their being placed against neutral backgrounds, with just enough overlapping to bind the composition together. Van der Ast derived from Bosschaert the sense of sculptural solidity of his objects and exquisite attention to each individual petal or curl of shell, but gives his paintings a softness and atmosphere that moves away from the more linear approach of Bosschaert as well as his own early work.