Lot 142: JAN JANSZ. DEN UYL THE ELDER

UTRECHT C. 1595 - 1639/40 AMSTERDAM STILL LIFE WITH A TAZZA AND BREAD ROLL ON A PEWTER PLATE ON A DRAPED LEDGE signed with the artist's device of an owl on the center of the tazza oil on panel 34.7 by 32.5 cm.; 13 5/8 by 12 3/4 in.

Anonymous sale, New York, Sotheby's, 29 January 2009, lot 105, where acquired by the present owner.

The most enigmatic of all 'banketje' still-life painters, for much of his short career Den Uyl revelled in the simplicitiy of the genre, stripping it bare to its essentials. Here he makes use of just three objects in a strikingly minimalist composition that seems a very personal study of texture and reflection, one that revels in the precariousness of the delicately balanced tazza on the pewter plate, and as such it is removed from the glorious, abundant banquet still lifes of his contemporaries and his own later output. Evidently, Den Uyl's individual approach to the genre found favour with contemporary collectors for this composition is known in at least two other almost identical arrangements.1 For many years prior to Pieter de Boer's groundbreaking article on the artist published in Oud Holland in 1940, the body of Den Uyl's work was adulterated by mis-attributions to other artists of monochrome banketjes school such as Willem Claesz. Heda. Since "retrieved from forgetfulness" thanks to de Boer's research, Den Uyl is now recognised as an important and highly accomplished exponent of early Dutch still life painting. Though he produced a few landscapes and animal paintings, his works consisted principally of monochrome banketjes that were much sought after by contemporaries, including the artist Peter Paul Rubens.2 In the centre of the tazza, the panel is signed with den Uyl's signature motif of an owl, which plays on the Dutch word for owl - uil - and was incorporated into almost all of his known works. 1. Sold New York, Sotheby's, 11 January, 1996, lot 101 and New York, Sotheby's, 24 January, 2002, lot 231. 2. See J. M. Muller, Rubens: The Artist as Collector, Princeton, 1989, p. 143, nos. 302-304.