Lot 44
  • 44

Balthasar van der Ast

Estimate
750,000 - 950,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Balthasar van der Ast
  • A still life of tulips, roses, irises, lily-of-the-valley, African marigolds and other flowers in a gold-mounted vase, with a lizard, a caterpillar and sea shells
  • Signed, lower left: .B. vander. Ast..

  • oil on panel

Provenance

Brigadier Christopher Huxley, London;
Sale London, Christie's, 12 December 1947, lot 63, sold for £1,050 to Slatter;
With Eugene Slatter, London, 1948;
Collection of  Dr. Hans Wetzlar, Amsterdam, by 1952;
Thence by inheritance to his daughter, Marga ten Haaf-Wetzlar;
Her sale, London, Sotheby's, 9 July 2008, lot 42.

Exhibited

London, Eugene Slatter Gallery, Dutch and Flemish Masters, 1948, cat. no. 21;
London, Royal Academy, Dutch Pictures, 1450-1750, Winter Exhibition 1952-53, cat. no. 134;
Haarlem, Teylers Museum, Bloemenwereld, 1953, cat. no. 3;
Laren, Singer Museum, Kunstschatten, 1959, cat. no. 22;
Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Bloem en tuin in de Vlaamse kunst, 1960, cat. no. 8, reproduced;
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, A world of flowers, 1963, cat. p.116, reproduced;
Singer Museum, Laren, Modernen van toen, cat. no. 6;
Amsterdam, Waterman Gallery, Masters of Middelburg, 1984, cat. no. 14, reproduced.

Literature

L.J. Bol, The Bosschaert Dynasty, Leigh-on-Sea 1960 (reprint 1980), p. 71, cat. no. 15;
S. Segal, Masters of Middelburg, exhibition catalogue, Amsterdam 1985, pp.52 and 61, cat. no. 21;
M. Jager, Voorkeuren. Een particuliere collectie, Utrecht 1985, pp.8-9, reproduced.

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a single piece of oak which has no reinforcements on the reverse and is flat with a very stable paint layer. The painting has been quite recently restored and should be hung as is. Under ultraviolet light although there may be a few tiny retouches in the upper right background, for instance in a small line running from the top edge and some work along the bottom edge, essentially there is no restoration to the still life itself. Along the bottom edge there is a very slight addition which adds a little bit more space beneath the signature and the elements of the still life, but only a very small amount of this addition is visible in the frame. The painting should be hung as is.
"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."

Catalogue Note

After the death of his father in 1609, Balthasar van der Ast moved to the house of his brother-in-law, Ambrosius Bosschaert, in Middelburg, where he remained as his pupil until the age of 21.  Sam Segal dated this picture to the early 1630s (see exhibition catalogue under Literature), yet a dating to the late 1620s would appear more probable, shortly after the artist's removal to Utrecht when his style began to diverge from that of his former master.  Though this panel retains the distinctly vertical composition of van der Ast's early still lifes, leading the configuration with a central, blue and gold iris and placing roses in the lower tier of the bouquet, we note here a progression in the depiction of two shells, a caterpillar and a lizard on the ledge, painted convincingly from life and balancing the lower half of the composition.  The shells and animals are likely to have been an influence syphoned from work of Roelandt Savery who had recently returned from Prague to settle in Utrecht.