Ludger tom Ring the Younger

With A. Seligmann Gallery, New York, 1938;
With Eugene Slatter Gallery, London;
Mrs. Nothmann, New York, 1952;
Lore Heinemann (1929-2010), New York;
With Bob Haboldt;
With Anthony Speelman, London;
Sold privately by Sotheby's, 2002.

K. Boström, “De oorspronkelijke bestemming van Ludger tom Rings stillevens,” Oud Holland, vol. 67, 1952, p. 54 and note 8 (as not by Ring);
C. Sterling, in La nature morte de l’Antiquité à nos jours, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1952, p. 30;
P. Pieper, “Ludger tom Ring d.J. und die Anfänge des Stillebens,” Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 1964, pp. 119-120, reproduced p. 121;
M.L. Hairs, Les Peintres flamands de fleurs au XVII^e siècle, New York 1955, p. 148 (only citing Sterling’s reference) and in subsequent editions;
S. Segal, “Blumen, Tiere und Stilleben von Ludger tom Ring d. J.,” in Die Maler tom Ring, exhibition catalogue, Münster 1996, vol. 1,  p. 21 and p. 146, note 80;
A. Lorenz, Die Maler tom Ring, exhibition catalogue, Münster 1996, vol. 2, p. 639, cat. no. 194, reproduced.  

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work on oak panel is unreinforced on the reverse. The horizontal texture of the wood grain is slightly visible. The paint layer is stable. No retouching is visible under ultraviolet light. The flowers in the still life and on the shelf are clearly in beautiful state. Even the delicate decoration to the vase is well preserved. There are a few retouches around the edges in the background, but the work is clearly in lovely condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The present work is a rare and important still life by the Westphalian artist Ludger tom Ring.  Flowers had been depicted in art for centuries as part of larger compositions, but by the early 16^th century they began to play a more prominent role, and instead of being shown wild in the fields, began to  appear in interior scenes in vases and other containers.  In about 1485-90, Hans Memling painted a vase of flowers on the reverse of a portrait now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid.  However, while a true floral still life, Memling's panel would have been part of a diptych, the other half of which would undoubtedly have been a Virgin and Child, and thus still a subsidiary part of a larger construction.¹  It is Ludger tom Ring the Younger who is credited with having made the first independent still life with flowers in a container.²  The Weldon picture is one of only eight extant still lifes by the artist, and four of these are in a single museum, the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, in Münster.¹   

Ring’s earliest dated still lifes are a pair of paintings of a Vase with Lilies and a Vase with Irises, of 1562 in Münster, (fig. 1). They are similar to Still Life with Wild Roses, Peonies and Other Flowers in a White Earthenware Vase in their overall conception:  each shows flowers in a white vases decorated with lettering, placed on a stone shelf and shown against a black background.  The vases in the Münster pictures are similar to the one here, but the color and shine suggest they are alabaster, not earthenware, and instead of a signature they bear the date and an inscription that has been read as “In verbis, in herbis et in lapidibus Deus.” ² The size and narrow proportions of the Münster pictures would indicate they may have been used as a kind of wall decoration or the outer panels of a triptych. Another white vase appears in a composition sold at Sotheby’s, London, 12 July 1978, lot 50.  It is shaped like a jug and has similar gold patterning as the one here; it is also signed within a decorative band, a device that appears to be uniquely Ring’s.

The present work has a more spacious feel.  The flowers are relatively smaller in proportion to the vase and there are more of them, in greater variety.  Along the lower edge are peonies and some five-petaled wild roses, topped by red violas.  Mixed in are dianthus and what appear to be gillyflowers, and at the top a bell flower.  A few curling petals and a few blooms are strewn along the shelf.  The shape of the vase and the way in which Ring directs the light to emphasize its swelling form creates a remarkable sense of three-dimensionality, which is carried over into the flowers themselves.   Ring carefully delineates the individual forms using a fine brush and adding white highlights to the foliage to make them stand out from the dark background.  They have a strength and clarity that recall the flowers and foliage in the works of Dürer. 

Pieper has dated the panel to Ring’s later period, after he had left Münster for Brunswick in about 1570 and perhaps as late as 1580.³   It is the most harmonious of his eight still lifes, striking a balance between the very austere narrow compositions of 1562 with just a few kinds of flowers and the larger more elaborate arrangements, such as the Wild Flowers in a Venetian Glass Vase or the Flowers in a Tall Glass Vase, both in private collections, which are more clearly influenced by Netherlandish still lifes.⁶  

1.  Segal, under Literature, p. 119.
2.  Ibid.  
3.  See A. Lorenz, under Literature, cat. nos 141, 142, 149-151, 194-196.
4.  "In words, in herbs and in stones ­­ -- God." 
5.  P. Pieper, under Literature, p. 120.
6.  Reproduced in Lorenz, op. cit., pp. 640-641.