Carl Wilhelm de Hamilton

Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Mak van Waay, 23 May 1967, lot 431 (as by Otto Marseus van Schrieck) to Douwes on behalf of Dreesmann;
Dr. Anton C.R. Dreesmann (inv. no. A-2);
His deceased sale, London, Christie's, 11 April 2002, lot 560, for £146,750.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The copper panels are in a good condition and both paint layers are stable and flat. The impasto to the scaly skin of the lizards and snakes is very well preserved. There is a small restoration on' tiger moth' picture lower right and a small one on painted lady, similar area. Both , otherwise, are untouched with only a moderately discoloured varnish."
"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."

Carl Wilhelm de Hamilton was a member of a prominent family of artists active in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Carl Wilhelm was trained in Brussels by his father, the Scottish still life painter James Hamilton (c. 1640-1720) but spent much of his career in Germany, Augsburg and possibly Baden-Baden. He specialised in highly detailed forest floor still lifes, in which plants, insects and reptiles are arranged on a forest floor against a dark background of moss, leaves and tree stumps. In this subject matter he was strongly influenced by Otto Marseus van Schrieck (?1619/20-1678) and Elias van den Broeck (1650-1708).

Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, has endorsed the attribution to Carl Wilhelm de Hamilton on inspection of the originals and has dated the paintings to the latter part of Hamilton's career on account of their exquisitely detailed, graphic manner. Drs. Meijer's dating of this work is corroborated by comparing the handling of the moss and the reptiles in the present painting with another forest floor still life by Hamilton which is signed with the monogram C.W.D.H. and dated 1735 and was offered Amsterdam, Christie's, 2 May 1991, lot 41.