Lot 56: Jan Jansz. van de Velde , Haarlem 1619/20 - Enkhuizen or Amsterdam 1662/64 Quinces and Medlars on a Table Ledge oil on panel

signed on table ledge at left J v velde fecit oil on panel

measurements note 15 1/8 by 12 3/4 in.; 38.5 by 32.5 cm.

Private collection, Germany;
Anonymous sale, Bremen, Bolland & Marotz, December 6, 2003, lot 498.

This exquisite small panel by the rare Haarlem still life painter Jan Jansz. van de Velde embodies everything for which the artist is best known. Van de Velde's still lifes are, as a rule, very spare, depicting only a limited number of scattered objects on a tabletop or ledge. With extraordinary restraint Van de Velde focuses here on just a few elements, leaving the upper two-thirds of the panel empty. The palpability of the objects and their crisp execution heightens the sense of realism which is so distinct that not even the impossibly balanced branch of medlars can lessen it, as it sits on the tabletop with all its weight hanging over the edge. Compared to the elaborate banketje still lifes of overturned tazze, nautilus cups and the like produced by many of his townsmen, such as Willem Claesz. Heda, Van de Velde's still life is intimate, personal, and yet just as sophisticated.

Van de Velde's oeuvre occupies an independent position in the history of Dutch seventeenth-century still life painting. His style seems modelled on the most intimate works of Pieter Claesz., whom he would have known in Haarlem. He was a member of an important family of Dutch artists, his cousin being the marine painter Willem van de Velde. He married in 1643 in Amsterdam and died in 1662 or 1664, leaving behind him a corpus of only forty or so paintings.