17th C, Flemish or Dutch School Pronk Still Life Old Master

Details

Description

Attributed to
Pieter de Ring, or Ryng (Dutch, 1615/1620 – 22 September 1660)
Artus Claessens (Flemish, 1600–1644)

Dutch or Flemish … Read more Attributed to
Pieter de Ring, or Ryng (Dutch, 1615/1620 – 22 September 1660)
Artus Claessens (Flemish, 1600–1644)

Dutch or Flemish School, likely 17th century, oil on canvas.

This richly appointed pronk still life presents an abundant tabletop display of fruit, glassware, a blue-and-white delft porcelain bowl filled with red berries, an elaborate gilt ceremonial vessel and a green parrot set against a dark ground. The composition’s emphasis on luxury objects, imported porcelain, precious metal, ripened fruit and exotic bird life places it within the northern European Baroque still-life tradition, where material splendor was used both as a display of cultivated taste and as a meditation on abundance, fragility and worldly transience.

Two plausible directions for attribution are Pieter de Ring and Artus Claessens.

De Ring is particularly relevant for the painting’s dark setting, theatrical illumination, fruit, porcelain and prominent gilt cup; the Rijksmuseum’s Still Life with Golden Goblet, dated circa 1655–1660, is a strong comparative reference for his use of a sumptuous golden vessel, luxury tableware and richly staged fruit within a Dutch Golden Age still-life format.

Artus Claessens offers an equally compelling comparison for the inclusion of the parrot and the broader Flemish banquet-still-life vocabulary; works associated with Claessens often include opulent fruit, drinking vessels, porcelain, live animals and exotic birds, and a known composition titled Still Life of Fruit, a Lobster, Cheeses and Drinking Vessels with a Parrot and a Squirrel on a Table provides an important visual parallel for the animal and banquet elements.

Measurements: 22" w x 24.25" h. See less