Lot 72: ERNST STUVEN

ERNST STUVEN HAMBURG CIRCA 1657 - 1712 ROTTERDAM STILL LIFE OF FLOWERS IN A GLASS VASE WITH A BUTTERFLY ON A LEDGE signed with an original signature lower center, now illegible oil on canvas 29 by 23 ¼ in.; 73.5 by 59 cm.

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 11 April 1991, lot 77 (as by Stuven, bearing a false Ruysch signature);
There purchased by the present collector.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague for confirming this painting to be a work by Stuven, on the basis of a photograph.

Stuven was born in Hamburg where his first teacher was the still life painter Georg Hinz. According to the biographer Arnold Houbraken, after relocating to Holland he was a pupil of of Willem van Aelst in Amsterdam and, later, Abraham Mignon in Utrecht. He eventually worked on his own in Amsterdam, specializing in lush flower and fruit still lifes that echo many of the motifs of his teachers.