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2 décembre 2009

Two Newly-Discovered Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte Soar Above Estimate @ Sotheby's Amsterdam

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Adriaen Coorte (circa 1665 – after 1707), "Still Life of Strawberries in an Earthenware Bowl". Estimate: €100,000 to 150,000. Sold for: €1,520,750 (£1,388,053). Photo: Sotheby's

AMSTERDAM.- Today at Sotheby’s Amsterdam two important, newly discovered still lifes by the much sought-after Dutch artist, Adriaen Coorte, were both the subject of long and spirited bidding battles and the two paintings brought a combined total of €3,097,500 (£2,827,219), far in excess of pre-sale expectations. Six bidders competed for Still life of strawberries in an earthenware bowl and after an extending bidding battle it sold for €1,520,750 (£1,388,053), more than ten times its pre-sale high estimate of €100,000 to 150,000 and a new auction record for the artist by a considerable margin. Moments later, this new auction record was then broken again when the second of the two still lifes, Still life of a peach and two apricots, attracted considerable interest and achieved the outstanding price of €1,576,750 (£1,439,166), against an estimate of €100,000 to 150,000. Five bidders – who were on the telephone and in the saleroom – all battled it out for this work. Both paintings were acquired by the same Private European Collector after considerable competition from around the world. The price achieved for Still life of a peach and two apricots represents the highest price for a painting sold in The Netherlands in 2009.

The two paintings had only recently re-emerged on to the market having been hidden away in a Dutch family collection for more than a century. The owner found them in a cupboard, and curious to see if they had any value, called Martine Lambrechtsen of Sotheby’s in Amsterdam, and described them to her. Realising their likely importance, Martine immediately made an appointment to go and see the works and was, within a few hours of receiving the call, able to confirm that they were indeed masterpieces by one of Holland’s most intriguing Masters. They were then entered in to today’s sale of Old Master Paintings at Sotheby’s Amsterdam.

Commenting on today’s sale, Martine Lambrechtsen, the Old Master Paintings Specialist at Sotheby’s Amsterdam who discovered the paintings, said: “We are absolutely thrilled with the extraordinary prices achieved today for these two exceptional paintings by Adriaen Coorte and the new auction record that we’ve established for the artist. When I first saw the paintings I immediately recognised what they were and the discovery that they represented and it has been wonderful to see them so appreciated by the international market today. They were the talk - and undoubted highlight - of the pre-sale exhibition and offered everything that buyers are currently looking for. They are quintessential examples of the artist’s work, are in exemplary condition and also have a remarkable story to tell.”

George Gordon, Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings, Sotheby’s Worldwide and also the auctioneer for the sale, said: “It has been a real pleasure to bring these two paintings to auction and to sell them so successfully in their homeland. With the remarkable results we achieved for the Coortes today, Sotheby’s holds the three top prices for any works of art sold in The Netherlands and continues its long-established practice of selling high value Old Masters in The Netherlands. Works by Adriaen Coorte have a sheer simplicity that is markedly different to the opulence and profusion of so many other artists who were active in the Northern Netherlands in the 17th century. There is nothing else quite like them in Dutch art.”

Works by Adriaen Coorte - a painter of outstanding quality and originality - are rare to the market, and few museums possess his works. At the time of the major Adriaen Coorte exhibition in the Mauritshuis in Den Haag last year, only 64 paintings were known of him, to which these two pictures are now major additions. The two paintings are quintessential examples of Coorte’s simple and distinctive style and they come to auction in fine, untouched condition. One is dated 1692 and the other is probably slightly later, and like the majority of Coorte’s work – and rather unusually in Dutch art – they were painted on paper and later glued to panel. The 1692 painting is the artist’s earliest known dated work on paper.

Of all the still life painters of the Dutch Golden Age, Coorte is the most enigmatic, as well as one of the most loved by modern collectors. Towards the end of the 17th century and into the early part of the 18th century he seems to have worked in complete isolation in the city of Middelburg in Zeeland, the same region where the Dutch family who discovered the painting originates from. His still lifes are nearly all very simple compositions of produce from a typical garden (fruits, vegetables and nuts etc.) and always strictly according to season.

Going forward, Sotheby’s Amsterdam will hold two sales of Old Master Paintings every year – the first in May and the second in December.

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Adriaen Coorte (circa 1665 – after 1707), "Still Life of a Peach and Two Apricots". Estimate: €100,000 to 150,000. Sold for: €1,576,750 (£1,439,166), Photo: Sotheby's.

signed and dated lower right: A , Coorte , i692 , oil on paper laid down on panel, 26.1 by 20.8 cm.

PROVENANCE: Possibly Daniël Schorer, clerk at the court of Flanders, Middelburg;
Possibly his sale Middelburg, 15 April 1771, either no. 49 or 50: 'A. Coorte. Een fraay Fruytstukje 10½ [x] 8 [duim = 26.2 x 20 cm]' and 'Een dito niet minder als 't voorgaande, zynde een weerga 10½ [x] 8 [duim = 26.2 x 20 cm]' (see previous lot, note 2);
In the family of the present owner for at least a 100 years.

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: Q. Buvelot, 'Toevoegingen aan het oeuvre van Adriaen Coorte (werkzaam c.1683-1707)', in Oud Holland (forthcoming).

NOTE: Sotheby's is grateful to Quentin Buvelot, senior curator at The Mauritshuis, The Hague, for writing the following note:

Until 1689, Coorte made still lifes with various kinds of fruit and vegetables on a stone table, after which he appears to have stopped working temporarily; with the exception of Still life with a spray of gooseberries from 1693,1 no dated paintings could be identified for the period 1689-1695. The present lot, a fruit still-life, is an important addition to Coorte's oeuvre, since it is dated 1692.

Many different kinds of seasonal fruit occur in Coorte's work. Strawberries and gooseberries occur with the greatest frequency (see previous lot). Apples and pears are completely absent from his extant work, and citrus fruit are the primary motif in only one work. Other fruit, such as peaches and apricots, are encountered more frequently. Coorte painted both primarily in combination with other fruit, but in two paintings from 1698 and 1704, apricots are the only subject. Peaches are the primary motif in three works dating from about 1693-1695, 1696 and 1705. In another painting, which was probably made after 1696, Coorte combined peaches and apricots, as he did here. In one still life from 1699, which is strikingly full of rich detail, Coorte painted apricots, peaches and grapes on a table, the only time his work features this combination. In one of Coorte's paintings, Still Life with Two Peaches and a Butterfly, painted about 1693-1695 (private collection), we see a peach that is painted like the one here (fig 1).2

Coorte devoted himself entirely to still lifes, scenes containing scarcely a single living creature. One occasionally sees a butterfly, the earliest examples being paintings from 1685. Here the painter included two butterflies in the scene. One of these insects appears to have just flown into the scene, enlivening the dark background and introducing more balance into the composition. The second butterfly is given a more static presentation by being depicted seen from above, with outstretched wings.

Characteristic for Coorte is that he painted on paper. Almost two-thirds of Coorte's oeuvre was painted on paper that was subsequently pasted to panels, or sometimes to canvas. In the case of 31 paintings, the paper was pasted to a panel, as is the case here as well as in that of the previous lot.

1. See Q. Buvelot, The still lifes of Adriaen Coorte (active c.1683-1707) with oeuvre catalogue, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2008, p. 88, cat. no. 12, reproduced.
2. Sale, London, Sotheby's, 5 July 2006, lot 36; op.cit., p. 92, cat. no. 17, reproduced.

About Adriaen Coorte (circa 1665 – after 1707), "Still Life of Strawberries in an Earthenware Bowl".

signed lower centre: A , Coorte; oil on paper laid down on panel, 26.5 by 20.4 cm.

PROVENANCE: Possibly Daniël Schorer, clerk at the court of Flanders, Middelburg;
Possibly his sale, Middelburg, 15 April 1771, either no. 49 or 50: 'A. Coorte. Een fraay Fruytstukje 10½ [x] 8 [duim = 26.2 x 20 cm]' and 'Een dito niet minder als 't voorgaande, zynde een weerga 10½ [x] 8 [duim = 26.2 x 20 cm]';
In the family of the present owner for at least a 100 years.

LITERATURE AND REFERENCES: Q. Buvelot, 'Toevoegingen aan het oeuvre van Adriaen Coorte (werkzaam c.1683-1707)', in Oud Holland (forthcoming).

NOTE: Sotheby's is grateful to Quentin Buvelot, senior curator at the Mauritshuis, The Hague, for writing the following note:

Little is known on Coorte's life, but we do know that he was active in the period 1683-1707. Since his earliest dated paintings were made in 1683, it may be assumed that the artist was born between 1660 and 1665. He worked in the Zeeland town of Middelburg, but seems not to have been a member of the Guild there.

For a long time, Coorte's name was known only to a small group of art lovers and collectors. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries his name slid into near-oblivion and his work fetched only modest prices at auction. The recent revival in appreciation for Coorte was initiated by Laurens J. Bol (1898-1994), during his term as director of the Dordrechts Museum. Due to his monographic exhibition held in 1958 and the publication in 1977 of his oeuvre catalogue, Coorte's name became widely known.

Nowadays, Adriaen Coorte's popularity appears to have been generated in part by the modesty that characterises most of his work, this is not only reflected in his paintings' simple subjects, but also in their generally small size. Certain specific motifs constantly recur in Coorte's restrained, intimate compositions. His characteristic works show us a stone table with one or more kinds of vegetables or fruit, or shells and nuts. These motifs, which are rendered in meticulous detail, are always set against a dark background. A hard, bright and wonderfully elaborated illumination spreads an unrealistic, almost magical sheen over his carefully structured still lifes. The edges of the stone table stand out sharply, frequently with a clear-cut joint and minor cracks or damage.

Over 60 signed paintings by him are known today, almost all of which are dated.1 The present and following lot are welcome additions, as they came only to light a few months ago and were completely unknown. However, they can possibly be connected with a sale in 1771 (see Provenance).2 The present lot is signed but undated. However, it is compositionally so similar to that of a recently discovered painting from 1693, Still life with a spray of gooseberries,3 that it seems justifiable to assign it to this period. Strawberries were one of Coorte's favourite subjects. The strawberries depicted here belong to a wild species, Fragaria vesca. This is rather a misleading name, since this 'wild strawberry' was actually the standard type under cultivation in the painter's day. The painter has depicted the fruit in various ways, a few times in the form of separate fruit, but more frequently in a small earthenware bowl. The 1696 still life with strawberries in an earthenware bowl is the earliest dated example (private collection, now on loan to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), the last dated one being a painting from 1704. A dozen paintings in total depict a small bowl of strawberries, half of which feature it as the primary motif as here (fig. 1). Even the simplest of households had earthenware bowls of this kind, and frequently used them as fruit-bowls.4

One may assume Coorte used the contemporary literature written for painters. In a unique textbook that was published in 1692, the painter Wilhelmus Beurs (1656-after 1700) described at length how to paint certain fruit and vegetables.5 The strawberries painted by Coorte illustrate Beurs's text perfectly. For instance, when describing the right way to depict gooseberries, the author dwells on the characteristic fine hairs and little veins on the fruit, which are difficult to display 'unless someone undertook to paint only a few white gooseberries from close by, out of curiosity'. These words seem to encapsulate precisely what Coorte sought to achieve in his rendering of fruit, in this case strawberries. To convey the different surface structures as convincingly as possible, he frequently depicted his motifs from very close by. He had a special way of rendering the yellow seeds of strawberries, by applying dots of white lead and lead-tin yellow. Beurs writes aptly of 'perfectly ripe strawberries' in which the painter must 'depict the shine on each individual seed'.

1. See Q. Buvelot, The still lifes of Adriaen Coorte (active c.1683-1707) with oeuvre catalogue, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2008.
2. See L.J. Bol, Adriaen Coorte: A Unique Late Seventeenth Century Dutch Still-Life Painter, Assen 1977, p. 32; Buvelot, op.cit, p. 120;
3. Buvelot, op.cit., p. 88, cat. no. 12, reproduced.
4. op.cit., pp. 32-42, reproduced.
5. W. Beurs, De groote waereld in 't kleen geschildert, Amsterdam 1692, pp. 130-144, 152-153.

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