Lot 1579 Dα

An excerpt from an 1886 auction catalogue pasted on the reverse of the piece states: "Cornelis de Heem. No. 94 (...) From the collection of Baron Grote at Wedesbüttel Castle, 8 June 1886 (...).".
The old attribution to the more famous artist Cornelis de Heem is understandable insofar as, in contrast to other still lifes by Jakob Rootius, which are generally much smaller and more modest in their motifs, this work is imposing both in size and in subject. In the catalogue of the Grote Collection of 1886, it rightly follows directly after an equally high-quality still life by Willem Claesz Heda, which is now housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (cat. 1886, no. 93).
The format, the richness of the motif and the painterly quality correspond to the content: Rootius presents here a demonstration of the "glory of the art of painting". The sunflower (tournesol), shown frontally and conspicuously at the highest point of the composition, turns to the sun as the artist turns toward beauty and truth. The sunflower was a common symbol for the art of painting and appears frequently in artists' self-portraits, such as those of van Dyck, or in allegorically decorated picture frames of the time, for example those for the works of Ferdinand Bol. According to the contemporary artistic theories of van Mander, the parrot imitating language refers to the imitation of nature through painting, with its plumage also alluding to the richness of colour.