Osias Beert the Elder

Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 3 July 2013, lot 129;

Where acquired, in after-sale.

Osias Beert was a Flemish artist active in seventeenth century Antwerp. Seen as one of the most influential still life painters of his generation, he was also one of the first to specialize in this genre. He became a master of the Guild of St Luke in 1602. His compositions consist of carefully arranged luxury objects and exquisite foods, often on a wooden table or support. They celebrate a world of beauty and abundance, with the prime objective of delighting the public’s senses. Beert was seen as a master of illusion, deploying great technical mastery in the rendering of his bouquets of flowers and ‘breakfast’ tables. He created a very distinctive effect of glowing transparency thanks to superimposed glazes – layers of very fluid oil paint – usually on an oak panel. His works are rarely signed and dated, which makes it difficult to establish a precise chronology. However, specialists consider that his earliest works depict objects arranged so as not to overlap, viewed from overhead, while in later works the composition is more compact and the viewpoint lower.

Like many other still life painters of the period, Beert repeats his favourite motifs. The plate of walnuts and hazelnuts appears, for example, in a Still life on a wooden table (Sotheby’s, New York, 1 February 2018, lot 37). The display of plates of apples, peaches and plums – with a fruit cut in half in the middle – reappears in many works, such as the Still Life with fruits and bread (Museo de La Capilla Real, Granada), a Still life with fruits, walnuts, wine and sweetmeats (Heinz family collection, Washington) and the Still life with fruits and bread (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Grenoble, inv. MG 433). The light falls on elegant glasses in the Venetian style, probably made by craftsmen who had immigrated to Liège or Antwerp, emphasizing their reflections against the very dark background. The window of the artist’s studio can be glimpsed as a reflection on the glass of white wine, another frequently used motif that allowed the artist to demonstrate the extent of his talent.

Although rooted in the material world, Beert’s compositions sometimes incorporate a symbolic interpretation that an educated contemporary observer would no doubt have grasped automatically. The butterfly, one of the artist’s recurrent motifs, can be seen as the soul liberated from the physical world, rising up to Paradise after a virtuous life. The very realistically rendered fruits, bruised by time and handling, recall the idea of vanitas. In reality as in its representation, this frugal but dainty meal can be seen as a gift from God, riches to be consumed in moderation.