Lot 1275 Dα

Abraham Brueghel was a member of the Flemish dynasty of artists begun by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Like his grandfather Jan Brueghel the Elder and his father Jan the Younger, Abraham Brueghel also travelled to Italy to study painting. However, unlike them, he never returned to Flanders after arriving there in around 1649 when he was 17 years old. The artist first resided in Rome, where he married in 1666. He later travelled to Sicily several times before finally settling in Naples in 1674/75.
The present work is inscribed “Roma” and can presumably be dated to 1673, shortly before the artist moved to Naples. It is characteristic of his Roman period, combining an arrangement of brightly lit flowers and fruits before a darker park landscape in the background. The staggered composition also includes an open pomegranate and a sliced melon, both of which are frequently reoccurring motifs within the artist's works.
The Lempertz auction catalogue from 1997 cites two expertise documents from Walther Bernt and Klaus Ertz which are no longer included with the work. In his expertise, Klaus Ertz writes “The present work exemplifies how masterfully this artist harmonically combined the Nordic style and the vivid colours so typical of Flanders with the dynamic Baroque manner based on colour contrasts characteristic of Italy.”