Otto Marseus van Schrieck

In the collection of Gunderloch-Lange, Germany, for over 100 years.

The actual painting is less red in tone and a little darker than the catalogue illustration suggests. The canvas has an old effective relining. Stretcher marks are slightly visible to the front. The paint surface is under a reasonably clear varnish layer. The paint surface appears in good condition, although areas of abrasion in the background and subsequent over paint are visible to the naked eye. The impasto of the moss has been well preserved. Inspection under UV light reveals additional retouchings in the snake, and minor strengthening of the thistle. Offered in a later plain parcel gilt frame in good condition.
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Born in Nijmegen, Marseus van Schrieck is thought to have been taught in Amsterdam, until he left in 1648 for a sequence of longer sojourns in England, France and Italy, where he is recorded in Rome in 1652 as a member of the city's 'Schildersbent'. In circa 1657 he returned to the Netherlands accompanied by his talented pupil Willem van Aelst (1627-after 1687), where he established his 'Waterrijck' on the farm grounds near Amsterdam, a 'watery domain', where he cultivated and studied plants and insects.¹ It is for these undergrowth scenes depicting flora, moss and fungi, with reptiles, snails, butterflies and other insects in their natural habitat that he became most renowned.

This painting demonstrates a particularly ingenious aspect of his delicate technique: rather than painting the patterns of butterfly wings by hand, Marseus sometimes pressed the actual wings into the prepared surface so that their fine powdery patterns were transferred onto it. The body and any imperfections were then with meticulous detail filled in with the brush.²  

1. A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, 139.
2. W. Breazeale, 'Nature and a New Drawing by Otto Marseus van Schrieck', in Master Drawings, vol. XLV, no. 4, 2007, pp. 527-33.