Lot 21: CORNELIS JACOBSZ. DELFF

A KITCHEN STILL LIFE WITH A MAID AND HER ADMIRER NEXT TO A TABLE WITH DEAD HARES, FOWL, BREAD ROLLS, A BASKET WITH FRUIT, AND COPPER POTS AND PANS, ON ANOTHER TABLE AN EARTHENWARE PLATE WITH FISH, CABBAGES AND ARTICHOKES, THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON IN THE BACKGROUND
signed upper right: CJD (in compendium) elff

130.8 by 202.3 cm.

oil on canvas

With Späth, Munich, 1929;
Anonymous sale, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 26 November 1996, lot 2010.

Cornelis Delff was the son of Jacob Willemsz. Delff the Elder (circa 1550-1601) and he initially studied under his father in Delft. He then moved to Haarlem where he worked under Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562-1638), before returning to Delft in 1610 where he remained for the rest of his life.

Like his teacher Cornelisz. van Haarlem, Delff was amongst the first artists in the Northern Netherlands to paint kitchen and market scenes with large figures and sprawling still lifes, in the style of Pieter Aertsen (1507/8-1575). This painting, with the still-life tipped slightly forward, the peasant figures in the foreground, and the moralizing scene in the background is typical for much of Delff's early works, such as the one sold in these Rooms, 10 May 2005, lot 21.

After circa 1620 his compositions became more restrained and simplified, with fewer elements and without religious background scenes or any figures at all, of which the one sold, London, Sotheby's, 9 July 2008, lot 55, is a fine example. Another version of the present work with minor differences is in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. (1)

1. See S.A. Sullivan, The Dutch Gamepiece, New Jersey 1984, reproduced fig. 11.