WILLEM VAN AELST
Delft l627 - 1683/4 Amsterdam
Ref: CC 106
Still life of flowers in an ornamental glass vase on a stone ledge with butterflies, a snail and a spider
Signed and dated lower left: Guillmo v Aelst 166(6)
Oil on canvas: 31 ¼ x 26 in / 79.4 x 66 cm
Frame size: 39 x 33 ½ in / 99.1 x 85.1 cm
Provenance:
Major GM Harding, Woodmancote, Lymington, Hants;
his sale, Christie’s London, 24th April 1931, lot 23 (160gns to Asscher)
Guy Argles;
his sale, Sotheby’s London, 2nd December 1964, lot 23 (bt. Agnew’s);
Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd., London, inv. no.29312
Mrs Mona Field, UK
Charles Crichton and Isabel Laird Crichton, UK
Zangrilli & Co., London, by 1995;
Richard Green, London, 1995;
Dimitri Mavromatis, Geneva;
Sotheby’s London, 5th December 2007, lot 41;
where acquired by JE Safra, Europe
Exhibited:
London, Agnew’s, Old Masters: Recent Acquisitions, 4th April-6th May 1967, no.19
London, Richard Green, Important Old Master Paintings, 1997, no.19, illus. in colour
Literature:
The Burlington Magazine, CVI, advertisement, p.xii, illus.
The Connoisseur, CLXIV, 1967, advertisement, n.p., illus.
T Paul, ‘Beschildert met glans’: William van Aelst and Artistic Self-consciousness in Seventeenth-century Dutch Still Life Painting, Ph.D dissertation, The University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 2008, p.285, no.56
Willem van Aelst was born in Delft in 1627, the son of the notary Jan van Aelst. At an early age he was apprenticed to his uncle Evert van Aelst (1602-1657), a still-life painter. He entered the local guild as a master in 1643. In 1645 the young artist travelled to France and on to Italy in 1649, where he worked for princes and noblemen and where he developed a highly elegant style. While living in Florence, van Aelst was appointed Court painter to Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. By 1656 he had returned to the Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam where he continued his successful career. Van Aelst’s earlier work is signed W. van Aelst, but from 1657 he used the Italianised form of his first name, Guillmo (Guillelmo). His death date has not been traced, but he must have died in 1683 or shortly afterwards, since his latest dated work is from that year.
As far as we know, van Aelst painted only still lifes, but in great variety: from small fruit pieces to lavish bouquets and impressive compositions with dead game. He had a substantial influence on still-life painting in Holland and abroad in the second half of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Among his pupils were the still life painters Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750), Isaac Denies (1647-1690) and Ernst Stuven (1657-1712).
The earliest of Willem van Aelst’s works is dated 1643. It represents a vase of flowers with some fruit at the base and it strongly reflects his uncle’s style. In the course of his career many flower pieces were to follow, gradually developing from the simple, small bourgeois Dutch bouquets of tulips and roses to the elegance of an aristocratic and international allure, which continued to feature tulips and roses as important elements. In several respects, this vase of flowers of 1666 can be considered an apotheosis of van Aelst’s flower painting. After it, he appears to have painted only smaller bouquets and posies. It has been argued that van Aelst’s main contribution to flower painting was the introduction of the S-curve in the composition of bouquets. Even so, the composition of most of his bouquets is based on a slightly curved diagonal from lower left to upper right, with a rather broadly spread middle section.
This bouquet has an especially broad base with the tulips and carnations flaring out to the sides. In contrast with most of his larger compositions, the artist has not included a velvet cloth or an intricate timepiece here, but concentrated entirely on the effect of the interplay of flowers and leaves. The painting is a combination of elegance and bravura: subtle curves exist side by side with unexpected angles and balanced colouring combines with strong chiaroscuro lighting. A convincing sense of depth is not sacrificed to his close attention to each and every detail.
Although this bouquet looks fully convincing at first glance, it, like practically all seventeenth-century flower paintings, could never have existed in reality. The relatively small vase could never hold the stems of all the flowers seen here. The stem of the purple-flamed tulip at the bottom could never be contained within the vase in its present position. Also, like many of his contemporaries, van Aelst must have used studies (some of which he had used before) to compose this piece. For instance, the two pink roses in the centre occur similarly in a work of 1663, now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Ward bequest no.2) as does one of the butterflies. Another painting in the same museum (Ward bequest no.3, not dated) contains an almost identical poppy and its bud, as well as the butterfly seen from below.
This type of ornamented vase was a favourite of the artist, who may have encountered it in France. It already appears in a flower painting by van Aelst dated 1649. Highly similar vases can be found in the work of other painters active in France during the same period, such as JM Picard (c.1600-1682) and JS Bernard.
In general, van Aelst did not include very explicit symbolism in his paintings, if he intended any at all. In this work, however, van Aelst obviously juxtaposed two flowers - the sunflower and the big opium poppy - which are highly charged symbols for day and night, respectively. The big opium poppy is a well-known metaphor for sleep, and in combination with the sunflower, van Aelst may indeed have intended to represent Night and Day, especially as the sunflower is turned towards the beholder and the poppy is turned away. There do not, however, appear to be any other references to night and day in the painting; the butterflies, for instance, have no moths as counterparts.
The sunflower is an unusual bloom for Willem van Aelst; he seems to have included it in only one other still life. There, in a much smaller bouquet of 1675 (on the German art market in 1985), he showed only the back of the flower. That bouquet, incidentally, repeats the central white rose from this painting.
The sunflower does occur in most flowerpieces by Maria van Oosterwijck, van Aelst’s contemporary, and according to Houbraken, Willem courted Maria at some point. Perhaps it is too much of a nineteenth century-romantic suggestion that the sunflower may have been included as a reference to van Oosterwijck.
Additionally, the conspicuous Cross spider (Araneus diadematus) might refer to Christ’s crucifixion. Like the snail - earthbound like man - the insect is climbing towards the sunflower, which can also be considered a symbol of devotion: just as the true Christian follows God, the sunflower turns according to the position of the sun in the sky during the day. However, most of all, this still life presents Willem van Aelst as a highly skilful illusionist, conjuring up the wonders of Creation by means of oil and pigments.
Information based upon an essay by Dr Fred Meijer, formerly Senior Curator of Old Dutch and Flemish Painting at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (Netherlands Institute for Art History), The Hague.
