MATTHIAS WITHOOS | FOREST FLOOR STILL LIFE WITH VARIOUS FLOWERS, BUTTERFLIES, AND LIZARDS, ALL BEFORE A LANDSCAPE

Private collection, New York;

Anonymous sale ('Property from a New York Estate'), New York, Christie's, 30 September 2005, lot 103;

Private collection, Europe;

Anonymous sale, Zurich, Koller, 29 March 2014, lot 3049.

This dramatically lit and painstakingly detailed forest-floor still life is wholly characteristic of the output of Matthias Withoos, a Dutch artist also active in Italy whose style remains indebted to his teachers Jacob van Campen and Otto Marseus van Schrieck. The painting's rich color palette of shades of green, silver, yellow is enlivened by delicate touches of blue and white, and from with its variety of foliage appear lizards, butterflies, berries.