Attributed to Jan van Huysum

Prof. Iohan Quirijn van Regteren Altena (1899-1980), Amsterdam (L.4617),
sale of his collection, Part IV, Amsterdam, Christie's, 13 May 2015, lot 29 (as Circle of Jan van Huysum)

Van Huysum's most familiar flower drawings are his large, broadly executed studies in black chalk or oiled black chalk, often with watercolour, but he did also make several somewhat more finely drawn still lives in red chalk, in a technique closer to that seen in some of his red chalk landscape drawings.  Two very comparable sheets depicting flower still lifes set within an arch-topped niche, drawn in red chalk and grey wash, are in the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, and two more are in Paris and St. Petersburg.¹  Though all of these drawings do also include grey wash, the handling in the red chalk is very comparable to that seen here. 

1.  Rotterdam, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum inv. J. van Huysum 11 & 13; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. 22674; Saint Petersburg, Hermitage, inv. 28575