Lot 3026. Balthasar van der Ast (Middelburg circa 1593–1657 Delft), Bouquet of flowers in a Wan-li vase with a lizard. 162[...]. Oil on copper. Signed and dated lower left: B. Van deR Ast . fe 162[...]; 27.9 × 21.8 cm. Sold for CHF 118 750 (Est. CHF 60 000 / 80 000) © Koller
 

Provenance: - Leonard Koester collection, London.
- Auction Christie's, London, 23 April 1993, lot 191.
- Auction Sotheby's, London, 29 October 1998, lot 47.
- Swiss private collection.
- Auction Koller, Zurich, 27 March 2009, lot 3029.
- Private collection, Germany.
- Auction Hampel, Munich, 11 April 2013, lot 605.
- European private collection.
 

Exhibited: - London 1960, Leonard Koetser, Spring Exhibition, cat. no. 7.
- Lemgo 2017–2026, long-term loan Weserrenaissance-Museum Schloss Brake.
 

Note: This colourful flower still life, signed and dated 1620, by Balthasar van der Ast was most recently on loan to the Weserrenaissance-Museum in Lemgo, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is an early work, created in Utrecht, where Van der Ast is documented as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke. His oeuvre was shaped not only by his brother-in-law and teacher Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573–1621); the city also offered a stimulating cultural environment in which, alongside Roelant Savery (1576–1639), the three sons of Bosschaert the Elder also settled. Van der Ast's large number of paintings from the 1620s thus demonstrates how stimulating Utrecht had become as a new centre for still-life painting.
The bouquet offered here dates from this period and belongs to a group of approximately fifteen small-format flower still lifes presented in Wan-li vases. A signed example closest to our work is in a private collection in the USA (oil on panel, 36.3 × 27.7 cm, see S. Segal: Flowers and Nature, Amsterdam 1990, p. 191, ill. 35b). Particularly noteworthy is the elaborate decoration of the Wan-li vases, which varies from one example to another and displays a range of motifs. Drawing on Bosschaert's elaborate flower still lifes, Van der Ast developed his painting further, creating a lively atmosphere through a reduced, more delicate palette and a certain lightness in the bouquets. While his teacher devoted himself to the faithful rendering of his subject, the young artist imbued his still lifes with intimacy and elegance, animating them through their accompanying details. Butterflies, lizards and other animals are therefore frequently embedded in the compositions, as the present example also demonstrates. Through this outstanding refinement, Balthasar van der Ast became one of the most important still-life painters of 17th-century Dutch painting.

This painting is registered in the RKD, The Hague, under no. 50548.

Koller. Old Master Paintings, 18 September 2026