Jacob van Hulsdonck

Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Lady'), London, Christie's, 25 November 1966, lot 44, for 4000 Guineas to Koetser;
With Leonard Koetser, London, 1967;
With Julia Kraus, Paris;
Private collection, Germany, 1983;
Robert H. Smith, Washington;
With Bob Haboldt, New York, 1995;
Private collection;
Anonymous sale ('The Property of a Private Collector'), London, Sotheby's, 14 December 2000, lot 15, where bought by the present owner. 

London, Leonard Koetser, Spring 1967, no. 3, reproduced;
Amsterdam, P. de Boer, 22 April - 31 May 1983;
Braunschweig, Herzog Anton-Ulrich-Museum, A Fruitful Past, 15 June - 31 July 1983, no. 27;
New York, Bob P. Haboldt, Fifty Paintings by Old Masters, 1995, no. 28.

T.H. Crombie, 'Autumn Offerings', in Apollo, vol. lxxviii, no. 20, October 1963, p. 305, reproduced;
Christie's Review of the Season, 1966-7, p. 30, reproduced;
'The Leonard Koetser Spring Exhibition', in The Connoisseur, no. 164, 1967, p. 253, reproduced fig. 3;
S. Segal, in A Fruitful Past, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam 1983, pp. 65, 115, cat. no. 27;
S. Segal, Flowers and Nature, The Hague 1990, p. 84, cat. no. 31, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting on copper has had a few little lost flakes in the upper background. The corners have also been bent to a greater or lesser extent at some time leaving a little diagonal line of retouching at the top left corner, another across the extreme top right corner, lines of retouching across the lower right corner and a little patch of retouching in the lower left corner. The upper background is strong in general however, with one or two places where the copper panel can just be seen, and a little strengthening around the left edge of the bowl. There are also light strengthening touches on the ledge in various places, and a faint scratch in the far left shadows. The strawberries have been strengthened in some of the interstices between them and in small patches where the ground can be seen, and there seems to be a few small older retouchings in the leaves at upper left in the bowl, with other little touches in the shaded side of the bowl itself, one or two retouchings around the cherries in the foreground with strengthening in places, and a few small touches in the carnation at the top. The signature is sometimes a little thin. However these are minor flaws in a painting that is finely preserved and unified overall. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"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."

Though born in Antwerp, Hulsdonck seems to have spent his youth in Middelburg, where the exiled Flemish Protestants fleeing the Spanish Terror after 1585 included many artists as well as patrons. This, and the close trading links with Dutch cities upstream such as Dordrecht, provided there a fertile breeding ground for artistic talent. Hulsdonck certainly knew Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. The two artists' work show great affinity, but Bosschaert, who was nearly ten years older than Hulsdonck, probably influenced the younger artist. Both were influenced by Jan Brueghel the Elder, but after Hulsdonck's return to Antwerp in 1608, his work shows more affinity with Osias Beert, who had been enrolled in the Guild in 1602 (but who never dated a picture), and who therefore probably influenced Hulsdonck, rather than vice versa.

This understated picture is one of Hulsdonck's most elegant compositions. His simplest compositions tend to be his most successful - the same is true of his still lifes of flowers in vases.