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3 décembre 2013

Pieter Claesz. (Berchem 1597/8 - 1660/1 Haarlem), Vanitas still life with a book, a glass roemer, a skull, a lute, a pack of car

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Pieter Claesz. (Berchem 1597/8 - 1660/1 Haarlem), Vanitas still life with a book, a glass roemer, a skull, a lute, a pack of cards and piece of parchment on a table. Photo Sotheby's.

signed with monogram lower centre on the seal: PC; oil on canvas; 49.7 by 65 cm.; 19 1/2 by 25 5/8 in. Estimation 50,000 — 70,000 GBP

Provenance: With B. Rapp, Stockholm, 1949;
Private collection, Sweden;
With Charles Roelofs, Amsterdam, 1985;
Sale, Stockholm, Bukowski, 25 April 1990, lot 364.

Litterature: N.R.A. Vroom, A Modest Message, Schiedam 1980, vol. II, p. 21, cat. no. 68, reproduced vol. I, p. 27, plate 22;
A. Veca in Vanitas. Il simbolismo del tempo, exhibition catalogue, Bergamo 1981, pp. 90, 92, 193, reproduced plate 107;
M. Brunner-Bulst, Pieter Claesz., Lingen 2004, p. 349, cat. no. 242, reproduced.

Brunner Bulst dates this picture to 1659/60 making it the artist’s last known Vanitas still life. Although Claesz. started painting Vanitas still lifes in the 1620s the majority of his works in this genre were executed in the 1650s.1 As a late work this painting perfectly exhibits what Ingvar Bergström described as "the mellow treatment of colour and freedom of brushwork" characteristic of the last decade of his career.2 Many of these later compositions are painted on canvas and are larger in size than his works on panel. During the last decade of his life he favoured grander, more detailed compositions in contrast to his earlier sober style. Here the entire picture plane is filled with a multitude of objects, a pack of cards, a pewter plate, a pocket watch, a glass roemer, a candle, books, a piece of parchment, a skull, a lute and a walnut.

1. See for example M. Brunner-Bulst, Pieter Claesz., Lingen 2004, nos. 205, 220 and 234.
2. I. Bergström, Dutch Still-life painting in the Seventeenth century, New York 1956, p. 116.

Sotheby's. Old Master & British Paintings Day Sale. London | 05 déc. 2013 - www.sothebys.com

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