Lot 169: MARGARETA DE HEER

MARGARETA DE HEER LEEUWARDEN 1600/03 - 1658/65 A COCKCHAFER ON A BRANCH, TWO BUTTERFLIES, A MOTH AND A SMALL BEETLE ABOVE, AND A LANDSCAPE BEHIND Gouache on vellum, laid down on panel; signed, in the branch: Margareta de Heer / Fecit 235 by 240 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. Amongst the latter, two comparable examples are in Groningen (where there are 9 or 10 watercolours by the artist), another in the Amsterdam Historisch Museumυ1 and and two were sold in London and Amsterdam in recent years.υ2

1. See L.J. Bol, Bekoring van het kleine, Stichting Openbaar Kunstbezit, 1963, cat. nos. 7, 22 and 43
2. London, Sotheby's 21 March 1973, lot 34 and Amsterdam, Sotheby's, 5 November 2002, lot 141