Lot 27.  Johannes Bosschaert (Middelburg 1610/11 - after 1628 Dordrecht?), Still life of tulips and other flowers in a basket, with shells and fruit on a stone ledge, signed with initials and dated lower left: ·I·B· 1624, oil on oak panel, 37.2 x 55.9 cm.; 14⅝ x 22 in. Estimate: 150,000 - 200,000 GBP. Lot sold 187,500 GBP. © Sotheby's.

Literature: P. Mitchell, European Flower Painters, London 1973, p. 60, reproduced in colour on p. 68, fig. 88.

Note: An infant prodigy, Johannes Bosschaert painted this beautifully preserved panel early on in his brief career. Signed and dated 1624, it is the earliest known flower and fruit painting by the artist. Around twenty-five undisputed works, the majority horizontal in format like this one, testify to his talent as a painter. Of these, nearly half are dated between 1624 and 1627, when the artist was still a teenager, the period into which the present painting falls. The only earlier dated work by Johannes is a study on paper of four plums painted the previous year, now at the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick.¹ 

The second son of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573–1621), justly regarded as the founder of Dutch still-life painting, Johannes was raised in an artistically stimulating environment. His two brothers – Ambrosius the Younger and Abraham – were also painters and his uncle was the celebrated still-life specialist Balthasar van der Ast (c. 1593/4–1657), with whom he may have been sent to train following the death of his father. Indeed his uncle’s influence resonates strongly throughout his small œuvre. This still life – with its assortment of flowers that includes tulips, roses, fritillary, bluebells and an iris – is a superb example of the pioneering work of this dynasty of painters, who became enormously influential, dominating the development of still-life painting in Middelburg for decades to come. 

We are grateful to Dr Fred G. Meijer for confirming that this is the earliest known dated example on panel by Bosschaert, although others, such as a comparable still life of flowers in a basket, must be from the same year and datable perhaps slightly earlier.² Dr Meijer describes the present painting as an excellent example of Johannes Bosschaert's work.