Lot 142. Isaak Soreau (1604 Hanau - after 1645), Still life with fruit basket and carnation. Oil on panel, 47x63 cm. Sold for: €181,000 (Estimate € 190.000 - 250.000). © HAMPEL Fine Art Auctions Munich

Provenance: This painting has been held in the same family collection for over forty years.

Note: On a table top, which is shaded to the rear, stands a wicker basket that has been worked up to date. In and around it are all kinds of fruit such as red and white grapes, peaches, plums and cherries. While the painting preserved in the Petit Palais (inv.no. PDUT01157) offers an even more horizontal arrangement, with a basket of grapes surrounded on the left by a deep plate of white-blue china and on the right by a pewter bowl of plums, here is found on the left next to the all-determining basket a carnation.

Isaak Soreau (1604-1644) was a German painter who specialized in still lifes. His family was of Flemish descent and moved to Frankfurt to join the Reformation. His father Daniel worked first for the family wool trade and later as a painter and architect. Isaak was trained in his father's studio, which was taken over in 1619 after his father's death by Sebastian Stoskopff (1597-1657), who completed his training. In 1626 Isaac went to Antwerp, where he was probably a student of Jacob Van Hulsdonck (1582-1647). A keen observer of flowers and fruit, he displayed exceptional technique and a rare ingenuity. From one work to another, repeating the same composition, picking up details or removing certain fruits, to distinguish them from each other. Soreau was influenced by Stoskopff in his choices emphasizing the natural beauty of objects and the bounty of nature, but also by the opulence of Flemish still lifes obtained through his contact with Van Hulsdonck. Unappreciated by art historians at the beginning of the 19th century, Isaac Soreau is in demand among art lovers today and his paintings are in the largest public collections, especially in Germany, in Munich and Hamburg.

We would like to thank Dr Fred G. Meijer for confirming the attribution.