Lot 121: MARGARETA DE HEER

LEEUWARDEN 1600/03 - 1658/65 STILL LIFE WITH INSECTS AROUND A ROSE ON A STONE LEDGE Gouache on vellum; signed and dated, lower centre: Margareta. de Heer / Fecit.1655 156 by 194 mm

Margareta de Heer worked for most of her career in Friesland, where she married the painter Andries Pietersz. Nieuhoff. De Heer's known oeuvre consists of some forty works, of which the earliest is a 1644 still life with shells and insects in the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, with most of the others probably dating from the 1650s. The majority of de Heer's compositions are either farmyard scenes, or still-life compositions such as the present lot. Among the latter, two comparable examples are in Groningen (where there are 9 or 10 watercolours by the artist), another in the Amsterdam Historisch Museum1 and three have been sold in London and Amsterdam.2 1. L.J. Bol, Bekoring van het kleine, Stichting Openbaar Kunstbezit, 1963, nos. 7, 22 and 43 2. Sales, London, Sotheby's, 21 March 1973, lot 34; Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 5 November 2002, lot 141; London, Sotheby's, 6 July 2010, lot 169