Ottmar Elliger the Elder (1633 Gothenburg - 1679 Berlin), Still life with Flowers, Red Admiral Butterfly and a Grasshopper. Oil on panel. 52.7 x 34.3 cm. Signed and dated lower left: Ottmar. Elliger. fecit. A °. 1667. Estimated price: €100.000 - €120.000. Photo Lempertz 1845

Provenance: Duits Limited, London.
- Private ownership, Germany.

Note: The painter and author Arnold Houbraken wrote in 1718 that Elliger was a pupil of Daniel Seghers in Antwerp. His early works display the influence of the German-Netherlandish still life painter Jacob Marrel, who was active in Frankfurt at the time. Elliger presumably worked in Copenhagen for several years during the 1650s before moving to Amsterdam where he married the sister of the painter Jacob van Walscapelle in 1660. He is known to have lived in Hamburg in 1666 and became court painter to Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg in Berlin in 1670, along with Willem Fredericksz. van Royen. Elliger mainly painted portraits and still lifes, and dated works of his are recorded between 1653 and 1678. The present signed and dated work was painted in Germany in 1667. The delicate, carefully spaced depiction of the flowers is typical of the contemporary German taste. The work displays a plethora of different blooms, including yellow iris, tulips, peonies, forget-me-nots, chrysanthemums, daffodils, harebells, anemones, aquilegias, lily of the valley, roses and a pink. Elliger appears to have had a penchant for depicting the undersides of blooms, as seen in the white peonies in the lower left corner. The harmonic interplay of the white petals with the contrasting calyx and the complex, reversed depiction of the hanging flower all testify to Elliger's prowess as a painter, as do the fine reflections in the water droplets on the grey stone bench. The green grasshopper and the red admiral butterfly present a fine contrast to the otherwise monochrome background of the work.