Lot 52: Georg Flegel (Olmtz, Moravia 1566-1638 Frankfurt)

A silver tazza with apples and a bunch of grapes, strawberries in a pewter dish with a spoon, a roemer on an ornate gilt stand, a silver-gilt cup and cover, a clay jug and other objects in a trompe l'oeil frame oil on panel 19 7/8 x 241/4 in. (50.5 x 61.7 cm.) PROVENANCE with Galerie Saint Lucas, Vienna, 1985. LITERATURE H. Seifertov , in the catalogue of the exhibtion, Georg Flegel. Stilleben, K. Wettengl, ed., Frankfurt, Historischen Museums Frankfurt am Main, 18 December 1993-13 February 1994, pp. 104 and 108, no. 21, illustrated p. 106. NOTES The composition derives from the lower compartment of an upright trompe l'oeil of a cupboard, in the National Gallery, Prague (inv. no. 1451). A replica of the upper compartment exists in the shape of a picture on canvas, formerly with Rafael Valls, London, circa 1990. It was not uncommon early in his career for Flegel to produce replicas of his more popular compositions, a fact attested to by the five versions of the Still Life with a Mouse (exhibition catalogue, op. cit, nos. 25-29) and three versions of the Still Life with a Pike's Head ( ibid., nos. 15-16). The present picture was presumably executed shortly after the Prague trompe l'oeil, which is generally dated to around 1610. As pointed out by Seifertov ( loc. cit. ) the new format might indicate that the artist had reservations about the two-tiered upright format of the Prague canvas. Flegel has here set the composition within a gilt foliated trompe l'oeil frame surround. He also made a number of other adjustments, most obviously in his choice of a panel support doubtless to enable a finer rendering of detail. The tazza and the gilt cup and cover appear larger in the present work and some of the neutral areas have been enriched with detail, for instance in the addition of cherries and strawberries in the centre foreground and the reddish web pattern applied to the surface of the jelly in the box.