Edwaert Collier - Vanitas Still Life with Nautilus Chalice and Bust - image-1

Lot 2096 Dα

Edwaert Collier - Vanitas Still Life with Nautilus Chalice and Bust

Auction 1197 - overview Cologne
21.05.2022, 11:00 - Old Masters
Estimate: 8.000 € - 12.000 €
Result: 125.000 € (incl. premium)

Edwaert Collier

Vanitas Still Life with Nautilus Chalice and Bust

Oil on panel. 30 x 24.5 cm.
Signed centre left: E. Colyer. fe: (above the flute).

Numerous objects are depicted on a table in a densely packed composition, including a skull, a nautilus goblet, a celestial globe and the plaster bust of a boy. The symbolic content of the still life, already evident in some of the objects, is made abundantly clear by the inscription on a piece of paper at the right edge of the picture: "SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI" - Thus passes the glory of the world. The skull in particular refers to the transience of everything earthly, leaving no doubt about the transience of man as well. In addition to Collier's trompe-l’œil still lifes, the artist's vanitas depictions enjoyed great popularity. With them, he demonstrated his ability to render a wide variety of surface textures in a painterly manner, in this case the shimmering mother-of-pearl of the nautilus shell, the dog eared book pages or the shiny wood of the lute.
The painting is registered in the RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie), The Hague, as an authentic work by this artist under no. 189228.

Provenance

Heinrich Moll, Cologne. - Auctioned by J. M. Heberle (H. Lempertz' Söhne), Cologne, 11.-12.11.1886, lot 38. - Auctioned by Rudolph Lepke, Berlin, 13.11.1917, lot 130. - Alfred Kummerlé (1887-1949), Brandenburg. - Confiscated by the GDR authorities in 1953 and transferred to the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in 1954, inv. no. 1486. - Restituted to the heirs in 2012.

Literature

Susanne Heiland: Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Katalog der Gemälde, Leipzig 1979, p. 39, illus. p. 297. - exhib. cat. "Das Stillleben und sein Gegenstand. Eine Gemeinschaftsausstellung von Museen aus der UDSSR, der CSSR und der DDR“, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, 23.9.-30.11.1983, p. 105, no. 34, illus. 58. - Dietulf Sander: Museum der bildenden Künste. Katalog der Gemälde 1995, Stuttgart 1995, p. 33, illus. 113. - Jan Nicolaisen: Niederländische Malerei 1430-1800. Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Leipzig 2012, p. 83 illus.

Exhibitions

Das Stillleben und sein Gegenstand. Eine Gemeinschaftsausstellung von Museen aus der UDSSR, der CSSR und der DDR, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, 23.9.-30.11.1983.