PSEUDO JAN DAVIDSZ. DE HEEM
Fruit in a Wanli Kraak Porcelain Bowl, with a Peeled Lemon, Lobster, Roemer, Wine Glass and Flowers on a Draped Ledge
oil on canvas
31 x 26 ½ inches (78.7 x 67.3 cm.)
PROVENANCE
Martin Rikoff, Paris
M. Rikoff Collection sale, Tableaux Anciens, Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, December 4-7, 1907, lot 8, illustrated
Theodore William Holzapfel Ward, Hampstead, London, 1924
Victor D. Spark Gallery, New York, by February 1953
Durlacher Brothers, New York, 1953, from whom acquired by
Joseph Verneer Reed, Greenwich, October 1953, and thus by descent in the family
Their sale, Sotheby’s, New York, January 28, 2000, lot 134, withdrawn (as Jan Davidsz. de Heem)
Private Collection, Maryland until the present time
EXHIBITED
New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, Pictures Collected by Yale Alumni, May 8 – June 18, 1956, no. 12 (lent by Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Verneer Reed)
LITERATURE
“Collection de M. Rikoff” in La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité, Paris, December 14, 1907, p. 367, (as David de Heem)
Photo-certificate from Dr. Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner dated Detroit, December 28, 1931, (as Jan Davidsz. de Heem, stating it “shows the artist at his best”)
“Jan Davidsz. De Heem” in Pictures Collected by Yale Alumni, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 1956, no. 12, illustrated, (lent by Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Verneer Reed, as Jan Davidsz. de Heem)
Marie-Louise Hairs, “Jan Davidsz. de Heem” in Les Peintres Flamands de Fleurs au XVIIe Siècle, volume II, 1985, p. 29, (as Jan Davidsz. de Heem)
Fred G. Meijer, Jan Davidsz. De Heem, volume I, Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 2024, pp. 323, 325, no. 374, illustrated, pp. 474, 499, fn. 522 (as probably after Jan Davidsz. de Heem, location unknown)
Delicacies and treasures from both near and far comprise this painted feast. Set out on a stone table covered by a purple velvet cloth with gold fringe, backed by a green hanging velvet curtain, is a banquet fit for a king. A wine cooler in the lower left is by a straw-covered bottle near pink roses and a carnation at the table’s edge. A peeled lemon, orange, white and red grapes with cherries, peaches and plums fill a tilted Wanli bowl by a white bread roll. A large red lobster with peaches are on top of a brown bottle casket. A roemer with a Venetian style wine glass, a vine of blackberries and a round silvered box are placed nearby.[1] Yet in the midst of all this opulence the decaying leaves of the foreground remind the viewer of the fleetingness of life. Meant to dazzle the eye, this vanitas element is irrefutable as a warning against the singular pursuit of worldly pleasures. It is the lone butterfly perched on the stem in the lower right, a traditional symbol for salvation, that points to the path of redemption and higher spiritual values.[2]
This painting has a rich history with its earliest known provenance the Martin Rikoff collection in Paris. When the Rikoff paintings were sold in 1907 the American Art News reported: it was “a collection famous for its Netherlandish paintings” … “which since the announcement of the sale had been so coveted by many leading dealers”.[3] By 1924 it was in the collection of Theodore Ward in London who was “a true pioneer in the collecting of Netherlandish still lifes”.[4] Ward spent the 1920s and 30s in London buying paintings, and in 1939 gifted nearly 100 Dutch and Flemish still lifes to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in memory of his wife Daisy Linda Ward. The quantity and range of the collection surpassed that of the country’s National Gallery. But not all the still lifes, as is the case here, went to the Ashmolean. In 1940 Ward wrote “that he could not provide much data concerning the provenance of the pictures in the collection. ‘I have been rather careless about making records of the latter [the origins of the paintings], having been much more concerned with the pictures than in their history”. Also no list of the works that hung in his home exists.[5] By 1953 the painting was in New York, first with the prominent old master dealer Victor Spark, followed by the Durlacher Brothers who were well known for selling old masters to important American museums and collections such as Sachs, Widener, the Frick and Fogg museums. This is where Joseph Verneer Reed acquired it. Among Reed’s many accomplishments was his founding of the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut and Triton Press in New York which specialized in art books. He was a trustee of the Yale University Art Gallery and the Morgan Library. He also had the incredible foresight to purchase Jupiter Island, Florida in 1934 along with substantial property on the mainland of Hobe Sound and form the Hobe Sound Company to develop it.[6]
This painting had always been regarded as by Jan Davidsz. de Heem. Although labeled David de Heem in the 1907 sale, the catalog stated the correct dates for Jan Davidsz. de Heem. In 1924 the still life was recorded as by the artist in the collection of the outstanding connoisseur Theodore Ward. By 1931 Dr. Valentiner then considered one of the world’s leading authorities on Dutch and Flemish art, and at the time the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts, wrote a photocertificate confirming the painting to be by De Heem. He stated, “the painting is painted during his Antwerp period … and shows the artist at his best, in careful execution as well as in the rich color”. When Reed purchased the painting from the Durlacher Brothers it was accompanied by Dr. Valentiner’s certificate. In January 2000 the painting was included in a Sotheby’s sale in New York as by Jan Davidsz. de Heem based on Fred Meijer’s conclusion after viewing photographs. Upon seeing it at Sotheby’s he altered his opinion and the painting was withdrawn from the sale. In his 2024 two volume catalogue raisonné on the artist, the painting is illustrated yet remains a mystery referred to as an “enigma” of “high quality” but not by De Heem. Further there is a work in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Brussels, of the same composition by yet another hand which suggests to Dr. Meijer that they are both after a now lost or missing original by De Heem. The painting in Brussels bears a false signature and date of 1667 which might correspond to that of the presumed original.[7]
[1] Fred G. Meijer, Jan Davidsz. De Heem, op.cit., volume 2, p. 643, no. 236.
[2] Raymond J. Kelly, “Types of Vanitas Symbols” in To Be, or Not to Be, Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Paintings, Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan, 2006, pp. 22 – 23, 25 – 28.
[3] “Paris Letter” in American Art News, New York, December 11, 1907.
[4] Alan Chong, “Fred G. Meijer: The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still – Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward” on www.schepunkté.de, July 15, 2004.
[5] Fred G. Meijer, The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 2003, pp. 10, 15.
[6] Steven R. Weisman, “Joseph Verneer Reed, Patron of the Stage, Is Dead” in The New York Times, November 26, 1973, p. 34.
[7] Fred G. Meijer, Jan Davidsz. De Heem, volume 1, op.cit., pp. 323, 325, fig. 374, pp. 475, 479, fn. 522.