Lot 41: Harmen Loeding , Leiden circa 1637 - after 1673 Basket of Fruit on a Draped Table oil on canvas

signed with monogram center-right: HDL (on ring) oil on canvas

measurements note 43 3/4 by 36 in.; 111.13 by 91.44

Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Still Lifes of the Golden Age: Northern European Paintings from the Heinz Family Collection, May 14-December 31, 1989, no. 16 (as Nicolaes van Gelder).

I. Bergström, in A.K. Wheelock, Jr. (ed.), Still Lifes of the Golden Age: Northern European Paintings from the Heinz Family Collection, exhibition catalogue, Washington, DC 1989, p. 107, no. 16, reproduced in color p. 62 (as Nicolaes van Gelder).

Private collection, Europe;
Acquired by the present collector circa 1986.

PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE COLLECTION
Although the present picture has been attributed in past literature to Nicolaes van Gelder, it is in actuality a typical, and significant (and in fact signed) work of another Leiden still life painter, Harmen Loeding.υ1 The present compostion is perhaps the artist's grandest work, combining elements that he used in a number of other paintings: the draped ledge, the covered cup, and in particular the hanging and transparent cherries are all typical of the artist. 1. We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD for first identifying this as a work by Loeding, and for finding the signature which had been missed by previous scholars.