Lot 1033 D α

This floral still life is an exciting and most important addition to the known oeuvre of Jan Davidsz. de Heem. It was completely unrecorded until recently, and thus it is absent from all literature on the artist, and on floral still-life painting in general. The painting does not appear to be recorded in any written source. According to family tradition, it was acquired in Italy several generations ago and moved to Germany in the collection of one of the heirs.
It is a most excellent example of De Heem’s later and most elaborate flower paintings, and its authenticity is confirmed by the authentic signature, at lower right, in a calligraphy that is characteristic for the period of execution. Moreover, the state of preservation of the painting is exceptional. One can only remark that, as in virtually all flower paintings from the period, the orpiment yellow has inevitably faded, as a result of which the bright yellow of the sunflower and some small roses has gone and only the orange ground is now visible.
Jan Davidsz. de Heem was one of the most skilled, most versatile, and most influential still-life painters of the seventeenth century. He was born in Utrecht, moved to Leiden in 1625 and left that town in 1631, presumably for Amsterdam. From 1636 to c.1658, he worked in Antwerp, after which he moved back to his native Utrecht. Upon the French invasion of Holland in 1672, he went back to Antwerp, where he was buried in February of 1684.
While de Heem has an excellent reputation specifically as a painter of still lifes of flowers, he only started to concentrate on this subject later in his career, after his move back to Utrecht.
Up to and including 1655, de Heem regularly dated his works, which allows for a detailed reconstruction of their chronology until that year. Subsequently, he painted only one known dated still life, in 1675 (sale London, Sotheby’s, 5 December 2007, lot 38), and thus the chronology of his paintings after 1655 remains somewhat hypothetical, but nevertheless a consecution can be established because the artist was continuously searching for new and better ways to make his paintings.
This newly discovered flower still life, which ranks among de Heem’s very best paintings in this genre, fits seamlessly into a group of flower pieces by the artist with sunflowers at the top that, in my opinion, were painted after his return to Antwerp, probably around 1674. All of these are currently in private collections, although the smaller one is on long-term loan to the National Gallery in London (Private collection, U.S.A. by 2000; sale London, Christie’s, 3 December 2013, lot 5; and Private collection, England, on loan to The National Gallery, London, 2017, inv. no. L1207). I believe that the present painting may well be the last of this group that de Heem painted. It is closer in style and execution than the others to a painting in Leipzig (Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, inv. no. 653) that was painted closer in time to the dated still life in from 1675 mentioned above.
De Heem included a wide variety of flowers in this bouquet, from the ever-popular flamed tulips, white lilies, and white and pink roses, to simple field species, such as morning glory, daisies, poppies, thistle, and umbellifers, combined with African marigold, iris, peonies, honeysuckle, and snowball. In addition, he included maize in the bouquet, as well as branches of blackberries, ears of wheat, and a cabbage leaf. The stems he has woven through the bouquet help bringing it to life to no small degree. On the ledge, he placed a variety of plums, rosehips, and a branch of mulberries, adding aspects of a fruit still life to a flower still life. The composition is enlivened with a host of small creatures, a cross spider, various butterflies and moths, caterpillars, a dragonfly, and a bumble bee. As usual, he observed and executed every detail in the finest possible degree of precision, which makes the painting extremely exciting to lovers of fine painting, botanists, and entomologists alike. As such, it effortlessly bridges the centuries between seventeenth-century enthusiasts and their twenty-first-century counterparts.

Fred G. Meijer, Amsterdam.