Gérard van Spaendonck was the foremost European painter of floral and fruit still life at the end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^thcenturies, and the present work is amongst the finest to ever appear on the market. In his lifetime he achieved great renown as the heir of the tradition of flower painting of which Jan van Huysum (fig. 1)(1682 - 1749) had been the principal exponent in the preceding generation, and he was the master of the botanical draftsman and painter, Pierre Joseph Redouté.

The quality of the brushwork is brilliantly displayed in the present lot: the stone vase as well as the marble ledge on which the flower arrangement rests set off the composition by creating a strong textural contrast with the soft petals and minutely rendered leaves. Among the most impressive technical feats is the inclusion of Van Spaendonck's signature in the marble ledge, executed in a perfect trompe l'oeil so as to appear etched directly into the stone.

Although a native of Tilburg, in Northern Brabant, Gérard van Spaendonck spent almost his entire professional career in France. In 1769 he left his homeland and settled in Paris, where in 1774 he was appointed miniature painter to the young Louis XVI. Having been elected to associate membership in the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, he made his Salon début in 1777. Three years later he became professor at the Jardin des Plantes. In 1781 he was made a full member of the Académie and began to produce drawings in watercolor on vellum for an extraordinary series of botanical studies known as the "Vélins du Roi." At the Salon of 1783, he showed two such watercolors.

Gérard van Spaendonck's oil paintings stand out for their exquisite precision of draftsmanship; their varied and rich sense of color; the harmonious balance of composition and pristine facture that allows him to render minute details, such as droplets of water on petals or leaves. According to Peter Mitchell:

“the basis of Gérard van Spaendonck's success, in common with other great flower painters, was a complete, technical mastery of flower painting, in all mediums, in every scale from a circular miniature... to a full-size Salon canvas in oil. The textures of alabaster and marble are as perfectly rendered as the fruit, flowers and foliage. It is the completeness of his attention to every minute detail, allied to elegance and refinement in the composition, that makes him the heir of Jan van Huysum. Like van Huysum, Gérard van Spaendonck perfects the Dutch traditional mastery of the study, understanding and depiction of flowers with French sophistication and good taste. [Anthony] Blunt considered his watercolour botanical studies the equal of Redouté's.”¹

Van Spaendonck's 1744 appointment to the King was a high distinction for so young an artist. As early as the following year, a review of his works in the annual exhibit at the Musée du Louvre was published in the October 1775 issue of the Mercure de France and states that his compositions are "des tableaux d'un coloris vif et d'une touche précieuse.  Cet artiste a placé dans quelques-uns de ses tableaux des vases d'agathe, de cristal, toujours très difficiles à bien traiter, sans nuire à l'éclat des fleurs, mais son pinceau a su vaincre ces difficultés" [precious and vibrantly colored pictures. This artist has included agate or crystal vases in a few of his paintings, which is always difficult without diminishing the effect of the flowers, but his brush was able to overcome these hurdles].

1. See P. Mitchell, in The Dictionary of Art, 1996, vol. XXIX, p. 255.