Lot 2: Karl Wilhelm de Hamilton (Brussels circa 1668-1754 Augsburg)

A forest floor still life with a lizard, snails and butterflies; and A forest floor still life with a snake, snails and butterflies
a pair, oil on copper
29.5 x 20.6 cm. (11 5/8 x 8 1/8 in.)(2)

Lavater Collection, end of 18th Century
Staatsrat Ludwig Meyer von Knonau
Professor Gerald Meyer von Knonau
Bertha Meyer von Knonau, wife of Erik Comte-Zeller
Thence by descent to the present owner

The third son of James de Hamilton (circa 1640-1720), a Scottish painter working in Brussels, Karl Wilhelm de Hamilton was part of a large family of artists working in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries. His two brothers, Philipp Ferdinand (circa 1664-1750) and Johann Georg (1672-1737), both worked in Vienna, with Philipp Ferdinand working for Emperor Joseph I, Charles VI and Empress Maria Theresa. Karl Wilhelm himself worked in Augsburg as the Court Painter to Bishop Alexander Sigismund von Pfalz-Neuburg and may possibly be identified as the Hamilton working for the court at Baden-Baden between 1699 and 1707.