Pasko Vucetic and Viktor Kovacic, Hatred and Madness. Oil on octagonal canvas, 49.6 x 50 cm. Signed P. Vucetic lower center. Painted circa 1898-99. Ebonized and stained frame, 88.5 x 88.5 cm. Signed V. Kovacik lower right. The frame inscribed L’odio/ quondo tu dormirai .../ Stecchetti lower center. French & Company, Llc © TEFAF Maastricht, 2016

After digging in the soil, a deranged man with bloodshot eyes and a ghoulish complexion has reached his goal. Scattered around him is the skeleton of the woman who scorned him in life. His hatred for her unabated, he has unearthed her remains, which he plans to nail to a pillory. Holding her skull and poking the eye socket with a long finger, he opens his mouth, letting forth a scream.

This unsettling 1898/99 image by the Serbian artist Pasko Vucetic was inspired by a 1877 poem entitled Il Canto del Odio (The Ballad of Hatred) by the Italian poet Olindo Guerrini whose nom de plume was Lorenzo Strecchetti. Vucetic painted the work at the turn of the century, while Victor Kovacic, a Croatian architect, made the octagonal, ebonized and polychrome frame. A less accomplished rectangular version of Hatred and Madness was exhibited at the Serbian pavilion at the Paris Exposition Universelle de 1900 (p, 326, cat. No.38).

Literature: Triester Zeitnung, Triest, 1901, cited ‘The New Paintings of Pasko Vucetic’, in Obzor, Zagreb, October 12, 1901, p. 5 cited ‘The Hatred’, in Nova Iskra, no. 3, vol.IX, pp. 62-63 cited.

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594-Haarlem-1680), Still life with a blackberry pie on a pewter plate, a silver-gilt cup and cover, an upturned tazza, a partly peeled lemon, a bread roll, hazelnuts, a façon-de-Venise glass, a silver decanter, a berkemeier and a knife on a pewter plate, all on a partly draped table, 1644. Oil on panel, 80.6 x 101.5 cm. Signed and dated ‘HEDA. 1644’. French & Company, Llc © TEFAF Maastricht, 2016

Provenance: Private collection, Europe from the early 19th century until 2014 

Simon Luttichuys (London 1610-1661 Amsterdam), Still life with a Pewter jug, a glass of beer and walnuts on Pewter dishes, all arranged on a table draped with a green cloth, 1649. Oil on canvas, 78 x 64.1 cm. Signed on the right 'S. L. fecet / 1649'/. French & Company, Llc © TEFAF Maastricht, 2016

Displayed in a 17th century ebony frame, most likely original.

Provenance: C. J. Bonde, Ericsberg, Sweden (recorded there in 1886) (The painting may have been at Ericsberg castle earlier, as a group of old master paintings belonging to Per Lagerbring (1732–1799) was bought by David Henrik Hildebrand, owner of Ericsberg, whose estate passed to the Bonde family.) 

Literature: Olof Granberg, Catalogue raisonné de tableaux anciens inconnus jusqu’ici dans les collections privées de la Suède, Stockholm, 1886, called vol. 1 but no more were published, p. 202, no. 343, as by Simon Luttichuys; Olof Granberg, Inventaire général des trésors d’art, peintures & sculptures, principalement de maîtres étrangers (non scandinaves) en Suède, vol. 3, Stockholm, 1913, no. 63, pl. 10; A. P. A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, Leiden, 1933, p. 45; N. R. A. Vroom, A modest message as intimated by the painters of the ’monochrome banketje’, Schiedam, 1980, vol. 1, pp. 189–90, fig. 257; vol. 2, no. 443; Bernd Ebert, Simon und Isaack Luttichuys, 2009, p. 134, pl. 77; p. 339; p. 396, Sim. A 58

Exhibitions: Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Holländska mästare i svensk ägo, 1967, no. 93

French & Company, Llc (stand 312) at TEFAF Maastricht 2016

Directors: Martin Zimet, Henry Zimet

French & Company was founded in the mid-19th century and was active supplying American robber barons - and the museums they founded - with decorative arts, sculpture and tapestries. In 1968 Martin Zimet, a former Wall Street banker and oilman, bought the firm. Throughout the 1970’s he was J. Paul Getty’s principal art agent. Martin’s son Henry joined the firm in 1981. Today, we buy and sell European paintings from the Renaissance to the mid-20th century and occasionally sculpture. Our choice of paintings reflects our taste. Our inventory includes masterpieces by Giovanni Segantini, Gustave Courbet, Jean-Francois Millet and Willem Claesz Heda. 

Contact: 17 East 65th Street, New-York, NY 10065, United States. T  +1 212 535 33 30 - M   646-289-0186 - F  +1 212 772 17 56 -www.frenchandcompanyart.com