Lot 129: JACOBUS LINTHORST

JACOBUS LINTHORST AMSTERDAM 1745 - 1815 STILL LIFE OF PEONIES, PRIMROSES, IRISES, TULIPS, A POPPY AND OTHER FLOWERS WITH GRAPES, A MELON, A POMEGRANATE, PEACHES, PLUMS AND NUTS, ALL ON A CARVED STONE LEDGE WITH A WATERFALL LANDSCAPE BEYOND signed and dated lower left: J Lin... J. Linthorst 1793 (the "17" partially hidden by a leaf) oil on canvas 41 1/4 by 34 7/8 in.; 104.8 by 88.6 cm.

With Knoedler Gallery, London, before 1948;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 7 July 1976, lot 67;
With Frost & Reed, London;
With Christopher Wade, London, by 1979;
With Richard Green, London;
Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 24 May 1984, lot 3;
There purchased by the present collectors.

While little is known of Linthorst's artistic training, his bright palette and opulent compositions clearly reflect the influence of Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) and his contemporary Jan van Os (1744-1808). Linthorst appears to have spent his entire life in his native Amsterdam and is recorded there as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke from 1789. He was the teacher of the still life painter Jan Evert Morel (1769-1808).

This particularly grand still life is comparable in quality with the pair of floral still lifes in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, considered to be among his finest works.υ1 Here the artist has combined a dazzling array of flowers and fruit, tightly packed together in overlapping profusion. A dreamy, waterfall landscape appears at right in the distant background, a device also used to great effect by van Os. Adding a stroke of trompe l'oeil bravura, Linthorst has signed his name so that it appears carved into the base of the stone platform, with a leaf hanging over the edge and partially covering the first two numbers of the date. It appears that the artist may have changed his mind on the placement of his signature and the remains of another can be seen just to the left of the final one.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague for confirming the attribution, based on an image.

1. Inv. nos. PD.32-1966 and PD.33-1966, one dated 1799, both oil on panel, 71 by 55.3 cm.