Lot 20: f - ABRAHAM MIGNON FRANKFURT 1640-1679 UTRECHT A STILL LIFE OF RED AND WHITE GRAPES IN A BASKET,

f - ABRAHAM MIGNON FRANKFURT 1640-1679 UTRECHT A STILL LIFE OF RED AND WHITE GRAPES IN A BASKET, PEACHES, PLUMS, CHESTNUTS, AN EAR OF CORN AND GOOSEBERRIES RESTING ON A FOREST FLOOR, WITH SNAILS, BUTTERFLIES, A CATERPILLAR, WASP AND OTHER INSECTS

signed lower right: A. Mignon/ f.

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Private collection, France, from which acquired by the present owners.
CATALOGUE NOTE

Mignon was born in Frankfurt-am-Main, and was curiously left behind there when his parents moved to Wetzlar in 1649, presumably so he could study under the still-life painter Jacob Marrell (1614-81). He later moved to Utrecht, perhaps following the death of his father in 1660, and was registered there as Master by the Guild of St. Luke in 1669. In Utrecht he was strongly influenced by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, in whose studio he worked, probably from the time of his arrival until the latter's departure from the city in 1672.

This is a highly typical and exceptionally well-preserved still life by Mignon. Like many of his fruit still lifes, it is composed with the repoussoir device of a tree trunk to the right, a stone block in the lower left corner, a group of five peaches in the lower centre, with grapes in a basket above, and the composition opened out to the upper left (here with a stone arch), so that the display of fruit ends in a receding curve to the left, emphasizing the depth of the composition and thus the density and volume of the subject. Mignon may perhaps have composed so many of his fruit still lifes in this way, with a strong framing element to the right, so that they could be combined to make a pair with a flower still life which would have hung to the left.

Although he died young, before he was even forty, Mignon was a prolific painter. Despite this, he does not appear to have dated any of his paintings. A chronology of sorts can be constructed from the changing style of his paintings, which gradually abandoned the softer naturalism of his years with De Heem in the 1660s for a slightly harsher realism, rendered in a particularly opaque and detailed technique. The present painting is likely to be a work of his early maturity.

69 by 57 cm.; 27 1/4 by 22 1/2 in.