Lot 123

* Gerard van Spaendonck Tilburg 1746 - 1822 Paris

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Description

Gerard van Spaendonck
Still Life of Flowers in a Basket with Two Butterflies, a Dragonfly, A Fly and a Beetle by an Alabaster Urn on a Marble Pedestal, Carved with Bacchantes Sacrificing Before a Herm, all on a Sculpted Marble Plinth
signed and dated lower right G. Van Spaendonck 1787
oil on canvas

Provenance

Le Comte d'Artois (brother of Louis XVI), Paris, by 1787;
Irene and Solomon Guggenheim, New York, given by him to
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation;
By whom sold, London, Sotheby's, July 11, 1962, lot 10, for £1,900 to L. Koetser;
Amonymous sale, London, Knight, Frank & Rutley, October 13, 1965, lot 154;
U.S. Industries, Inc., Great Britain;
By whom sold, London, Christie's, April 22 1966, lot 57(unsold);
With Wildenstein and Company, New York by 1967;
Anonymous sale, Monte Carlo, Christie's, April 3 1987, lot 66, to French and Company;
With French and Company, New York, from whom acquired by
Wendell Cherry;
By whose Estate sold, New York, Sotheby's, May 19, 1994, lot 129;
There purchased by the present owner.

Exhibited

Paris, Salon du Louvre, 1787 no. 85 [Tableau représentant une corbeille remplie de diverses fleurs posée sur une encoigne de marbre sculpté. à coté se voit un piédestal de marbre blanc sur lequel est un vase (appartient à Mgr. le comte d'Artois) 3 pieds 11 pouces x 3 pieds 4 pouces. (approximately 127.5 by 108.5 cm. which would include the frame)];
Paris, Bagatelle, La Folie d'Artois, 1988, p. 73, fig. (essay by Colin Bailey).

Literature

Mercure de France, September 1787, (see Faré Literature below);
M. & F. Faré, La Vie Silecieuse en France, La Nature Morte au XVIIIe Siècle, Fribourg 1976, p. 309;
M. van Boven & S. Segal, Gerard & Cornelius van Spaendonck, Twee Brabanste bloemenschgilders in Parijs, 1980, pp. 198-99, no. 159, reproduced;
S. Segal, Flowers and Nature, Netherlandish Flower Painting of Four Centuries, catalgue of the exhibition, Osaka, Nabio Museum of Art, April 20-May 16, The Hague 1990, p. 246, under no. 70, reproduced fig. 70b.

Catalogue Note

The Salon of 1787 included two paintings by van Spaendonck- one painted for Louis XVI in 1785 and now at Fontainebleau (see Boven &Segal, pp. 101-2, no. 6, Literature below) and the present picture which belonged at the time to Louis' brother, the Comte d'Artois. The correspondent to the Mercure de France, in reviewing the Salon of that year, wrote that the Comte d'Arthois' painting was in no way inferior in composition to that of the King and he placed van Spaendonck "à coté du célèbre Van Huysum."

The flowers in the present painting are identified by van Boven and Segal (see Literature below). In the basket are cabbage roses, white roses, auricolae, red and white peonies, poppy amenones, rose of Sharon, hyacinths, opium poppies, pot marigold, bladder senne, tall Malilot and field poppies; and behind the pedestal, garden nasturtiums.

The painting was engraved (in color) by Antoine Chazal (1793-1854) for Flore Pittoresque Ou Recueil De Fleurs Et De Fruits peints D'Apès Nature Dédié Aux Dames. Par A. Chazal, Elève de M. Van Spaendonck, published around 1820. The engraving omits the carving on the plinth and the insects (Van Boven & Segal, pp. 188-89, no. 137-4, colorplate 40).