Notes
THE ORIGINS OF STILL LIFE PAINTING: FROM ANTIQUITY TO CARAVAGGIO
ANTIQUITY: THE FIRST STILL LIFES
The Roman poet, Martial (c.40-c.103/4 BC) described a painting of peaches in one of his epigrams: 'Persica praecocia Vilia maternis fueramus Persica ramis: Nunc in adoptivis Persica cara sumus' ('Unripened peaches: On the maternal branch we were worthless:/Now, on these adopted branches we are priceless' (fig. 1, detail of an encaustic wall painting from Pompeii; Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples). These verses were known as xenia (singular, xenion), a word that can be translated as as 'gifts of hospitality'. Vitruvius defined xenion as fresh food that one would give to one's guests and 'for that reason, when artists painted the sort of thing traditionally given to their guests, they called such pictures xenion' (Vitruvius, De architectura, circa 25 BC, VI, 7.4).
By the Hellenistic period what we could loosely call 'still life' paintings (really more what we now call genre paintings and still lifes) were becoming more commonplace. Pliny the Elder (27-79 BC) wrote in his Naturalis Historia (Natural History) of such paintings by the artist Peiraikos (3rd Century BC) that 'these works are altogether delightful, and they were sold at higher prices than the greatest [paintings] of many other artists' (Naturalis Historia, 35.112). Through painting simple, humble subjects such as barber shops, shoemakers and vegetable stalls Peiraikos came to be known as 'the painter of vulgar [rhyparographos] subjects'.
Pliny's Natural History recounts perhaps the most famous anecdote from the Ancient World that alludes to still life painting: that of the rivalry between the painters Parrhasios (active 440-390 BC) and Zeuxis (435-390 BC). According to Pliny, the two artists contrived to see who could paint the most realistic painting. Zeuxis's painting of a bunch of grapes was so realistic that birds actually swooped out of the sky to eat the fruit. Thinking he had won the competition, Zeuxis asked his rival to remove the curtain from his painting to reveal it, only to be told that the 'curtain' was in fact the painting. The story sums up the concept of mimesis - by which painting imitates nature, perfectly mimicking the forms of the natural world.
References to Zeuxis and Parrhasios appear many times over the centuries; for example, the Dutch seventeenth century artist and writer, Philips Angel referred to Gerrit Dou as a 'Dutch Parrhasios', and the Dutch poet, Joost van den Vondel (1587-1679) wrote of a bee flying into a painting by Daniel Seghers and exclaiming 'Nature, forgive me; the painter's brush tricked me'. In eighteenth century France, critics at the Salon wrote that the painted reliefs by Alexandre-François Desportes were so skillful that even sculptors were fooled by them, and a poem from 1749 about a still life by Jean-Baptiste Oudry asks whether the viewer should not try to touch the fruits and flowers so as to undeceive ('détromper') the eye. Long before the French invented the term trompe l'oeil, the Dutch in the seventeenth century had used the word betriegertje ('little deception') to define particularly deceptive and illusionistic still lifes.
Pliny writes of the Greek mosaicist, Sosos 'who at Pergamon created the "unswept room" [oikos asarotos], so called because it portrayed bits of food and other things on the floor that are normally swept up [left there] as though they had simply been forgotten' (Naturalis Historia, 36.184; and fig. 2. detail of floor mosaic fragment by Herakleitos after Sosos of Pergamon; Musei Vatacani, Rome). The tomb-like aspect of Sosos' oft-copied 'unswept room' mosaic reflects another ancient custom, that of reminding diners of their mortality (Hellenistic Greeks and Etruscans actually believed that food morsels dropped on the floor should be left as food for the dead), and this idea continues in to seventeenth century Holland with the so-called banketje still lifes created in Haarlem by the likes of Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz. Heda, with their own vanitas motifs.
The Roman still life tradition was largely derived from that of Greece, with their still lifes even more decorative, bordering on trompe l'oeil, and often forming part of a decorative scheme in dwellings. Food, often shown with live animals, was portrayed in mosaic panels called emblemata (fig. 3, mosaic from a Roman villa at Tor Marancia; Musei Vatacani, Rome) from the Greek word, embellein, 'to insert', to indicate the social status of the person in whose house the mosaic was in, much like the Dutch seventeenth century pronkstilleven ('abundant' still lifes). Commonly portrayed are partidges (fig. 4, detail of an encaustic wall painting from Herculaneum, Mueso Archeologico Nazionale, Naples; and lot 51 in this sale), fruits in baskets, dishes or vases (lot 56 in this sale); and fruits in isolation or stacked on top of tabletops or shelves (fig. 5, encaustic wall painting from Pompeii, Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples - the latter reminiscent of seventeenth century Spanish still lifes, particularly those of Juan van der Hamen).
PRECURSORS OF THE AUTONOMOUS STILL LIFE
There was no place for still life in the Middle Ages, when our life on earth was seen only as a stepping stone to eternal life in Heaven, and hence not worthy of depiction. It was not until the philosophers and Humanists of the early fifteenth century turned to the ancient writers, as did the artists, that we see the beginnings of the re-emergence of this genre. First, the Tuscan artist Giotto di Bondone (c.1266-1337) reintroduced the modeling of three-dimensional objects using light and shadow, as well as some of the earliest attempts at spatial perspective. This was further developed by his pupils, such as Taddeo Gaddi (c.1300-60), who painted small still life frescoes of two niches containing liturgical objects in the Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence circa 1337-8 (fig. 6). These new techniques in perspective developed in fourteenth-century Italy soon spread to the Netherlands via Southern France and Burgundy, especially through the miniatures illustrating manuscripts produced at the Burgundian court. The earliest small-format, portable paintings available in significant numbers were those produced in Burgundy and their rich trading partners in Ghent, Brussels and Bruges by artists such as the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin and Rogier van der Weyden (who had visited Italy in 1450). New techniques in oil painting, with its multiple glazes, lent themselves to painting in minute detail, and many of these painting were purchased by Italian or Spanish merchants whose firms had offices in the Netherlands, and who later shipped their purchases back home. One of the most important followers of van Eyck in southern France was Berthélémy d'Eyck, also known as The Master of the Aix Adoration (active in Anjou and Provence circa 1440-70). His convincing depiction of shelves of books (fig. 7, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) is not an independent still life, but rather the lunette from a panel depicting the Prophet Isaiah, yet it prefigures independent still lifes of the same subject, such as Langetti's painting in this sale (lot 59).
The first depictions of simple objects separate from figures were painted by van Eyck followers on the backs or outsides of shutters. Painted diptychs of a donor and the Virgin were especially popular at this time, and the backs of these panels often had still lifes on them. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Memling's majolica vase with flowers, now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (fig. 8). By isolating the still life from the representation of the Virgin (now lost), Memling created the first Netherlandish flower piece. The painting is, nonetheless, heavily imbued with meaning: all the flowers are associated with the Virgin, and Christ's monogram on the majolica pitcher makes it clear that the flowers are to be interpreted in accordance with medieval tradition. Three-quarters of a century later, Ludger Tom Ring painted similar flower pictures, which, although not directly associated with related religious images nonetheless clearly have Mariological symbolism. The Venetian artist Jacopo de' Barbari (c. 1440-before 1515) painted what is considered to be the earliest known signed and dated (1504) trompe l'oeil with his Still life with Partridge, Iron Gloves and Crossbow arrows, when he was at the court of the the elector of Saxony (fig. 9, Alte Pinakothek, Munich). De Barbari bought with him from Italy the knowledge of spatial perspective as well as the common Italian illusionistic device of a cartellino (a small slip of paper on which he placed his signature), which is seemingly pinned to the background of the painting with a nail.
The rise of the studiolo in the fifteenth century meant a greater interest in the study of nature. A studiolo was a special room set aside for housing a collection of works of art and curiosities, which might include specimens from the natural world such as coral, seashells and minerals. This encouraged people to rely on their own observations of the natural world, and the subsequent growing interest in empirical observation led to the universities of Padua and Bologna establishing new chairs in the natural sciences. Artists such as Andrea Mantegna and Carlo Crivelli put greater emphasis on the still life elements in their paintings. Of course, Leonardo led the way in these and so many other studies, and a list of his works from circa 1482 mentions 'many flower studies from nature'. A wash drawing (fig. 10, Bibliothèque de l'Institut de France, Paris) from a portfolio Leonardo left in Milan was circulated among later artists by Giovan Paolo Lomazzo (1538-1600) and its importance in the development of still life painting has only recently been recognized, not least because it may have been seen by the young Caravaggio when he was apprenticed to Simone Peterzano (1540-96) in Milan, who had copied the Leonardo sheet for himself.
Autonomous still lifes do not appear in Europe until the second half of the sixteenth century. However, on both sides of the Alps, artists were incorporating more and more still life elements in their paintings, usually to underscore the religious subject of the work. These include Pieter Aertsen, Martin van Heemskerck and Joachim Beuckelaer. Vincenzo Campi (1535/40-1591) from Cremona immediately took up this new genre, as did his Bolognese colleague, Bartlommeo Passerotti. However, Campi, while eagerly including many of the Flemish allusions to lasciviousness and promiscuity in his paintings, did not include the religious elements, making no attempts to place his market scenes in specific settings. Thus, although Italian market scenes and butcher shops may have been intended to carrying moralizing meaning, they were not painted specifically for religious edification. Campi's works, therefore, are more associated with representations of the Seasons or the Elements, in the tradition of the Bassano workshop. The widespread characterization of such people - market women, butcher's assistants, kitchen maids, and so on - as libidinous and vulgar led to a genre of caricatures, as found in the work of Passerotti, which represents an iconographic shift from the Netherlandish precedent. These works should be seen more in the context of physiognomic exaggerations, first initiated by Leonardo. They are satires on the lower classes, incorporating conventions of literary and theatrical comedy, in which the peasants in the painting were burlesque figures. Passerotti executed these paintings with extremely loose brushwork, which was considered acceptable for this 'comic' genre, but very much against the prevailing Mannerist style (fig. 11, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome). One of Passerotti's pupils, Annibale Carracci, was to completely reverse this underlying meaning in his famous Butcher shop (fig. 12; Christ Church Picture Gallery, Oxford), where he uses the free brushwork not for comic effect, but as part of a far-reaching reform that was to revolutionize Western narrative painting. Indeed, Annibale's butchers - members of his own family - derive from his study of the Classical tradition, as exemplified by Raphael and Michelangelo, an association that gives the painting an unprecedented grandeur and seriousness, whilst at the same time rooting it firmly in reality. In one stroke, Annibale's astonishing innovation had raised the work to a rank closer to that of history painting.
This new genre of kitchen and market scenes spread throughout Europe, especially to Spain, as the southern Netherlands was still under the control of the Spanish Hapsburgs. Thus engravings and paintings by Campi and Aertsen found their way to Spain, and influenced the young Velázquez, who created a series of kitchen and tavern scenes called bodegónes, after which the whole genre of still life painting in Spain took its name. Francisco Pacheco, in his 1649 treatise, Arte de la Pintura, compares Velázquez to the ancient artist, Peiraikos. Velázquez rejected the overabundance of Netherlandish paintings of the same subject in favor of simple, humble and uncluttered interiors that nonetheless carry a subtle moral message in tune with Counter-Reformation thought. By the early seventeenth century explicit religious motifs had all but disappeared from kitchen and market scenes, and the tradition was carried forward by the likes of artists such as Frans Snyders and David Teniers the Younger.
A growing interest in botanical accuracy in paintings and drawing grew, inspired inititally by artists such as Leonardo, Durer and Ludger Tom Ring, and subsequently fostered by scholars who worked together with artists to create the first modern scientific illustrations of nature. This need for subjective data led to an increasing number of books attempting to catalogue the newfound knowledge of scientists. One of the most remarkable scholars of his age was the Bolognese Ulisse Aldovrandi (1522-1605), who in his lifetime collected over 18,000 natural objects and 7,000 dried plants preserved in fifteen volumes. Aldovrandi assembled his own team of artists, who over a period of fifty years produced nearly 8,000 watercolors and 4,000 woodcuts to illustrate his encyclopedia of nature. His favorite was the Florentine Jacopo Ligozzi (circa 1547-1627) whom he got to know in 1577 and who he compared to another Ancient, Parrhasios. Ligozzi produced beautiful plant studies in watercolor and oil (see, for example, lot 53 in this sale).
Aldovrandi's ornithology was reprinted in 1610 in Frankfurt, along with Antwerp, the main center for scientific publication circa 1600. There, the botanist Carolus Clusius (Charles de l'Ecluse, 1526-1609) came into contact with Georg (Joris) Hoefnagel (1542-1600), already an artist of considerable repute and in the service of the Emperor Rudolf II. After his stay in Frankfurt, and almost certainly as a result of meeting Clusius, Hoefnagel turned almost exclusively to the depiction of plants and tiny animals, and in 1592 his son published the Archetypa Studiaque Patris Georgii Hoefnagelii (fig. 13, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich), a volume of engravings reproducing some of his father's plant and animal depictions with moralizing mottoes. In the Archetypa we see for the first time flowers, fruits and animals treated as a subject matter in their own right. These illustrations served as the pattern for other artists, such as Georg Flegel (see lot 48 in this sale) and led to the earliest pure still lifes being produced in cities such as Prague, Florence, Antwerp and Frankfurt-am-Main, all of which were centers of scientific study and publishing.
THE FIRST MODERN STILL LIFES, CIRCA 1600
A group of still lifes created shortly before 1600 has been credited with being the first examples of this genre in modern Europe. Certainly, around 1600, the demand for still lifes increased dramatically and seemingly simultaneously in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy. It would appear that the first Vanitas paintings and portrayal of banquets emerged in the Netherlands and the first paintings of fruit in Italy.
One of the earliest fruit pictures represents a plate of peaches by the Milanese artist, Ambrogio Figino (circa 1550-1608), and was probably painted circa 1591-4 (fig. 14, private collection). Figino was a pupil of Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, a humanist painter who was known to have owned drawings by Leonardo. Milanese artists and writers of this period were striving to bring about an artistic renewal and to overcome the formal rigidity of Mannerism, whilst at the same time adhering to the new tenets of Counter-Reformation doctrine that demanded art should be simple and didactic. After the Council of Trent in 1503, Milan became a center of ecclesiastical reform, spearheaded by the Counter-Reformation saint and archbishop, Charles Borromeo (for whom also see lot 36 in this sale). His cousin Federigo, a great patron of the arts (and in particular Jan Brueghel the Elder), was later made later Archbishop of Milan in 1595. In 1584 and 1590, Lomazzo published two treatises on painting, and following Horace's dictum ut pictura poesis ('as is painting, so is poetry') demanded that the art of painting should strive to elevate its viewers to greater empathy with and understanding of their faith. Thus, in the years following the 1590s, Milan produced a number of painters of simple still lifes of fruit arranged on plates and in bowls, most notably the early female artist, Fede Galizia (1578 (?)-1630, see lot 55 in this sale) and her pupil Panfilo Nuvolone (1581-1651 (?)). Paintings by these artists display a close-up view of the subject, which gives them a surprising monumentality combined with a scientific curiosity as well as a kind of piety. Counter-Reformation doctrine demanded the discovery and celebration of God's greatness though the most humble of subjects, and these small paintings evoke this spirit admirably. In the late sixteenth century Milan was under Hapsburg rule, and thus closely allied to Spain, and the will of a Spanish collector written in 1599 already mentions bodegones de Italia, and thus it may not be a surprise that by 1602 one finds the first securely dated Spanish still life, by Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560-1627, fig. 15, San Diego Museum of Art), which betrays many similarities with still lifes painted in Milan at the same period, possibly as a result of Milanese paintings of this type and period having made their way to Spain.
Imbued with this Milanese spirit, the young Caravaggio, working in Rome, would revolutionize painting circa 1600, and on the way create one of the earliest independent still lifes and certainly the most famous ever painted, now in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan (fig. 16). Although painted in Rome, it was already in the collection of Cardinal and Archbishop Federigo Borromeo by 1607. Caravaggio's Basket of fruit could easily have been intended as a recreation of one of the two xenia described by Philostratos, and its influence on contemporary artists must have been enormous. Caravaggio himself said that 'he worked from life' (con il naturale davanti agli occhi, as reported in a letter written shortly before 1620 by Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani), and his still life of a basket of fruit is startlingly modern and lifelike in a way no artist had previously managed. Many of the collectors of Caravaggio's art were highly placed churchmen or nobility, such as Giustiniani and Borromeo, who were both cultivated and learned. Interestingly, the same was true of the collectors of Sánchez Cotán's still lifes in Spain. Such men would almost certainly have interpreted what they saw from a profoundly Christian viewpoint, and to such sophisticated viewers, the more levels of meaning a painting might have, the more interesting it would be. To Cardinal Borromeo, Caravaggio's Basket of fruit would not only have been aesthetically pleasing, but it would have revealed God's grace whatever the season.
AFTER CARAVAGGIO:
South of the Alps, just as in the Netherlands, the production of still lifes increased dramatically around 1600, and the new genre was firmly established within a very few years. In the North in particular many sub-genres within still-life painting evolved.
However, in Italy the chief requirements of Counter-Reformation doctrine, especially in the depicting of religious events, meant that painters were at pains to provide their paintings with realistic props, which included making sure that their works representing biblical scenes and saints had captivating still life elements in them. Thus, some of the most important autonomous still lifes were produced not by specialists in this genre, as in the Netherlands, but rather by narrative painters of the very highest rank, such as Caravaggio, and in Spain, Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664). Zurbarán's 1633 Still life with a basket of oranges (fig. 17; Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena) marks an apogee of still life painting, and recalls both the naturalism of Sánchez Cotán as well as the austerity and symmetry of Juan van der Hamen (fig. 18, National Gallery of Art, Washington). Zurbarán's still life is pure artifice, yet it exudes a mystical other-worldly aura that makes it appear to modern viewers as a precursor to such modern developments as Surrealism.
Caravaggio's influence was felt throughout Italy for the rest of the seventeenth century (and beyond), but most of all in his native Lombardy, where it produced remarkable still life painters such as Evaristo Baschenis (1617-77). It is not even known where Baschenis learnt his craft, and he had already been ordained a priest sometime between 1640 and 1643. The little we do know, he seems never to have left his native Bergamo. However, his work shows the influence of many of the early Milanese still life painters such as Fede Galizia and Panfilo Nuvolone. His most famous works are his music still lifes (also a popular theme with Caravaggio), where he re-used many of the motifs in constantly varied arrangements, transferring them to canvas by means of cartoons. His interest in unusual perspectives suggest that he may have studied Italian intarsia work of the sixteenth century, as well as scientific treatises on perspectival foreshortening. The beautifully rendered musical instruments in his paintings appear as if lit on a stage, the illusion sometimes heightened by the inclusion of a curtain drawn to the side. Baschenis often portrayed the instruments in his paintings as if they were covered with a layer of dust in which one can sometimes see fingerprints (see, for example lot 60 in this sale). It is unclear exactly what he intended to mean by this magical effect, but it would seem to be a form of vanitas motif, to represent the ephemeral nature of human activity and sensual pleasure: Ars Longa, vita brevis (Seneca's rendering in De Brevitate Vitae, section 1 of Hippocrates (circa 460 - 357 BC)).
We are grateful to Dr. Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, author of Still Life: A History, Munich and New York, 1998 & 1999, from which the above is taken.
Copyright C 1998 Hirmer Verlag GmbH, Munich.
English translation copyright C 1999 Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
Published in 1999 by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
Joachim Beuckelaer was born circa 1533 in Antwerp, the cousin of Kathelijne Beuckelaer who was married to the Amsterdam-born painter Pieter Aertsen. Carel van Mander states that Beuckelaer may have worked in Aertsen's Antwerp studio, although this is not confirmed by other contemporary sources (C. van Mander, Het Schilder-boeck 1604, fol. 238r & 238v). Joachim Beuckelaer became a free master in the Guild of Saint Luke in 1560 as free master's son and we know of signed and dated paintings from every year between 1561 and 1570, as well as from 1574. Although he must have died that year or one year later (like his uncle Pieter Aertsen), no dated paintings are known from the three previous years. This may have been an indication that he was ill, although he did take on a pupil in 1574, Jacobus Comperis.
More recently it has been discovered that Beuckelaer probably had a brother, also a painter, called Huybrecht Beuckelaer, sometimes identified as the so-called 'Monogrammist HB'. Although Huybrecht Beuckelaer was only inscribed in the 'Liggeren' in 1579 as free master-painter, he most certainly was active as a painter long before that date, in 1567, and most probably even as early as 1563 (see, for example, two monogrammed paintings, a Passover Feast, offered at Sotheby's, New York, 26 May 2005, lot 61; and a Nativity, in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, inv.1817). Van Mander discusses Joachim Beuckelaer in some detail, naming various paintings he saw in well-known collections. However, van Mander is also rather sketchy with facts about his life telling us that Joachim died young at around 40 years old, and that he complained about the fact that he had so little success and earned so little. Van Mander suggested that Joachim Beuckelaer may have been active in the workshop of Anthonis Mor, as painter of textiles, although it seems more likely that Huybrecht, not Joachim, worked in Mor's studio. Their father was Mattheus Bueckeleere, who became free master in 1535, and their paternal grandfather Cornelis de Buckeleere, was also a painter, who was inscribed as a free master in Antwerp in 1514.
Joachim Beuckelaer may have learned the trade in his uncle's workshop although whether or not he accompanied him to Amsterdam in the mid- 1550s remains unclear. His name is not mentioned anywhere in the Amsterdam archives, but this may only be because he was an assistant. Commencing from 1560 in Antwerp, there are many signed and dated paintings by Beuckelaer, the earliest from 1561. For every year until 1571 at least four dated paintings, quite often many more, are known to us today. Altogether just under eighty dated paintings exist, and quite a few undated works as well. His most productive period seems to have been between 1563 and 1566, and from these four years alone he executed at least 43 paintings, and no doubt many more must have existed. According to van Mander, Beuckelaear most probably died in 1574 or 1575, while working on a painting for Vitello, one of the officers in the service of the Duke of Alba.
Beuckelaer's oeuvre is mostly comprised of market and kitchen pieces, a genre in which he became the leading specialist of his day. Although Pieter Aertsen is generally considered to be the inventor of this genre, it was his cousin that made it so popular (C. van Mander, op. cit., fol. 238r., where he goes on to say that after Beuckelaer's death, his paintings dramatically increased in price, sometimes as much as twelve times the amount he received when he was alive). Beuckelaer varied the compositional repertoire within this genre considerably, painting fish and poultry markets, vegetable markets and kitchen interiors, the latter often combined with biblical scenes in the background, such as Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, The Flight into Egypt, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, Christ at Emmaus or Ecce Homo. He also executed a remarkable series of The Four Elements from 1569-70, sold at Christie's, London, 13 December 2000, lot 25 (£2,973,750=$4,300,000), now in the National Gallery, London. Within these paintings he placed huge amounts of porcelain, baskets, selling wares, meats, fruits, vegetables, and so on, often piled high within the picture plane. Thus, he became one of the first still life specialists and a forerunner to artists such as Vincenzo Campi, Georg Flegel, Lucas van Valckenborch, Joachim Wtewael and especially Frans Snyders.
The present, hitherto unpublished painting, is a late work by the artist, datable to 1570-4. Towards the end of his life, Beuckelaer's working method changed dramatically. Instead of preparing his compositions rapidly but meticulously in chalk on the unpainted panel, his usual method in the early and middle 1560s, he began to paint more often on canvas, a different support than previously used, which required a slightly different working method. Interestingly, the increased use of canvas as a support suggests he was attracting more foreign commissions, and indeed, almost all of Beuckelaer's paintings on this support have an early Italian provenance (for example, most of the canvases by him in the Museo de Capodimonte, Naples, were made for the Farnese family in Parma; and the superb Four Elements in the National Gallery, London, were formerly in the Panciatichi collection, Florence).
There are four dated paintings by Joachim Beuckelaer from 1570, and two from 1574. One of these is the huge Fish Market in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (inv. 814), the other a Kitchen maid with Christ in the House of Mary and Martha in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. 6049). Like the present painting, the Vienna Kitchen maid is painted on oak panel, whereas the Antwerp Fish Market is on canvas. Of the four paintings from 1570, three are painted on canvas, and the fourth, a Fish Market in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, is painted on panel.
The present painting is stylistically closely related to all of these works, as can be seen in shared features such as the high foreheads and flat chins of the young women, which are typical features in many of the young females in Beuckelaer's late paintings (see also, for example, the market woman in red on the Fruit and vegetable market (Earth) in the National Gallery, London, or the woman on the left of the Stockholm Fish market). Typical, too, are the elongated fingers of both hands. Whereas in Beuckelaer's earlier paintings the market women have rather plump hands, in the later paintings the hands become longer and more elegant. Such comparisons can also be found in the Stockholm Fish market, in the London Four Elements, as well as in a Fruit and vegetable market of 1569, where exactly the same vegetables can also be found. While the present painting is probably stylistically most comparable to the 1574 Fish Market in Antwerp, in all of the above paintings and the National Gallery Four Elements, the brushwork is extremely free, almost alla prima, and the same facial types occur repeatedly, somewhat elongated, with the flat chins, long straight noses and round eyebrows.
The background of the present painting reveals a city gate with, further to the right, town houses painted in brown and pink tones. This same pinkish-brown tone can be found in the sky. It is a typical of Beuckelaer's later paintings and the same colors appear in many of his paintings from the late 1560s and early 1570s. It is the result of degraded smalt, something that occurs quite often in Beuckelaer's late paintings, as has recently been shown from chemical analysis (M. Spring, C. Higgitt, D. Saunders, 'Investigations of pigment-medium interaction process in oil paint containing degraded smalt', in National Gallery Technical Bulletin, London, 26 September 2005, pp. 63-5).
The present work was examined with the aid of infrared reflectography by Margreet Wolters, Fred Meijer and Peter van den Brink in April 2002, and revealed several changes in the production process. Several contours in black paint underneath the present surface were visible, and the arms and hands were clearly original in different positions, and subsequently painted out. No underdrawing in chalk could be detected, not even in the vegetables or the background. The use of rather thickly painted contours, as if painting alla prima, is perfectly consistent with Beuckelaer's studio practice. This can be demonstrated in the four London canvases, which were also studied in 1994, when they were still on loan to the Ghent museum.
We are extremely grateful to Dr. Peter van den Brink, Director of the Suermondt Museum, Aachen, for preparing the above entry. In 2002 he examined the painting with the use of infrared reflectography and confirmed the attribution to Beuckelaer. He dates the work to the early 1570s.
