Isaac Soreau (active Hanau 1620-1638),A still life of grapes in a basket, mulberries in a wanli kraak porcelain bowl and flowers in a glass vase on a stone ledge, oil on panel.49.2 x 65.7cm (19 3/8 x 25 7/8in. Photo: Bonhams. 

LONDON.- An elegant still life by the 17th century painter Isaak Soreau is to be sold at Bonhams Old Master Paintings sale in London on 4 December. It is estimated at £400,000-600,000. 

The work depicts grapes in a basket, mulberries in a wanli kraak porcelain bowl and flowers in a glass vase on a stone ledge. It is painted in Soreau’s characteristically restrained style, harmoniously balancing the meticulously rendered objects against a severely neutral background. 

Soreau was born just outside Frankfurt in 1604 and is thought to have died there sometime in the 1640s but he was by family and training essentially a Flemish painter. The son of a Protestant Dutch artist who left the Netherlands to escape the continual risk of religious persecution during the Eighty Years War, Soreau was trained initially in his father’s workshop. It has been suggested that he spent some time in Antwerp at the studio of Jacob von Hulsdonck whose work his own closely resembles. Nevertheless, despite the fact that the painting for sale was executed on an Antwerp panel – as were others of his works - there is no firm evidence to support this theory. 

The painting is unsigned. This is usual with Soreau, however, who is known to have signed one work only, a still life in the State Museum, Schwerin Staadsmueum. The porcelain bowl in the Schwerin still life is identical to that in the Bonhams painting and also features in others of Soreau’s pictures.