Pendants: Flower arrangements in glass vases

Details

Literatur:
Vgl. Michel Faré, Le grand siècle de la nature morte en France, Fribourg 1974, S. 86;
Vgl. Eric Coatalem, La nature morte française au XVIIe siècle, Dijon 2014, S. 300, mit farb. Abb.

Provenienz:
Galerie Dr. Riedl, München;
Privatbesitz, Süddeutschland (in obiger Galerie erworben).

Description

Alongside Jacques Linard, Lubin Bauguin and Louise Moillon, Jean-Michel Picart was one of the most outstanding flower painters active in Paris in the 17th century. Originally from Flanders, Picart is documented as a painter and art dealer in the French capital around 1635. This pair of decorative floral still lifes are laid out in oval compositons, and each shows a bouquet of flowers, artfully arranged in a glass vase placed on a stone plinth. One bouquet includes white and red veined tulips, blue iris, honeysuckle with a dragonfly in the air above it, anemones and other early bloomers. In the other, the red tones of carnations predominate, combined with jasmine and daisies. A butterfly has settled on the sweet smelling flowers. F. Faré noted that the present pendants are repetitions by the artist, executed somewhat later, of the compositions that were housed in the Broughton Collection, London, in the 1970s and are now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge (inv. nos. PD.37-1975 and PD.36-1975).