Lot 43: Abraham Mignon Frankfurt 1640 - 1679 Utrecht , The interior of a grotto with a rock-pool, frogs, salamanders, a bird's nest and a large bouquet of flowers including poppies and lilies, a view of a landscape through the cave opening beyond oil on

signed lower right: A. Mignon fe oil on canvas, in a carved and gilt wood frame

measurements note 79.9 by 95.1 cm.; 31 1/2 by 37 1/2 in.

With Galerie Georges de Jonckheere, Paris, 2000;
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

PROPERTY FROM A CORPORATE COLLECTION
This exceptionally well-preserved still life is one of Abraham Mignon's most impressive paintings and counts itself amongst his largest and most ambitious compositions. The grotto motif is one that he returned to on a number of occasions, presumably because of the highly successful fusion of still-life and landscape elements. The majority of these works are in portrait format, however, and only rarely did Mignon venture into a large landscape format; one other such example, of approximately the same size as the present work, is in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum,υ1 but in that painting Mignon places a cliff face in front of the grotto opening and therefore eliminates the immense sense of depth that he achieves instead in the present work. In both paintings Mignon employs the grotto wall at the left as a repoussoir device to achieve greater depth and, with it, density and volume of subject matter. The still lifes in the two works are remarkably similar and, as is typical throughout the artist's oeuvre, several elements recur in both; the dominant red poppy, the yellow iris and the rearmost frog, for example.

This work can be dated to circa 1670 when Mignon was at his most creative and, while still demonstrating the influence of his master Jan Davidsz. de Heem, whose workshop he ran after 1672, it is clearly inspired by the game and insect-pieces that Willem van Aelst (1627-1683) and Otto Marseus van Schrieck (1619-1678) brought back from Italy. For a brief biography of the artist, please see the note to lot 41.

This painting will be included in the forthcoming revised catalogue raisonné on Mignon being prepared by Dr. Magdalena Kraemer-Noble.
1 See M. Kraemer-Noble, Abraham Mignon, Leigh-on-Sea 1973, p. 20, no. A22, reproduced as frontispiece.