Abraham Mignon

Comtesse André Mniszech, Paris;

Her sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 10 May 1910, lot 45 (as Cornelis de Heem);

Where acquired by M. Margossian;

His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 21 November 1935, lot 13 (as Cornelis de Heem);

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 18 May 1988, lot 47 (as Circle of Abraham Mignon);

With Richard Feigen, New York, 1988-1991 (as Abraham Mignon);

Thereafter acquired by the present collector.

Several elements in this autumnal still life, such as the melon, pumpkin, moth, and sprigs of wheat, may have been freely adopted from Jan Davidsz. de Heem's larger Still Life with Bird’s Nest, from the mid-1660s and today in the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden (inv. no. 1261). The artist also incorporated elements from Abraham Mignon's Still Life in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne (inv. no. WRM 2838). Arranged in a pyramidal composition, the bountiful harvest of crops comprise a rich variety of textures meticulously rendered by the artist. 

Although this still life was formerly identified by Sam Segal as a work by Jan Jansz. De Heem, Dr. Fred G. Meijer has recently discovered that he died prematurely at the age of twenty-five in 1676. It is therefore improbable that De Heem produced works of such artistic merit and the author of the present painting remains unidentified. 

We are grateful to Dr. Fred G. Meijer for his assistance in the cataloguing of the present lot.