Willem van Aelst Delft 1627 - in or after 1683 Amsterdam (?)

Estimate

250,000 - 350,000 USD

bidding is closed

Description

Willem van Aelst
Still Life with a Roemer, a Carafe of Vinegar, a Glass Tazza, a Bread Roll and Oysters on a Silver Plate on a Draped Table Top
signed and dated top left: Guill.mo van Aelst. 1675
oil on canvas

Provenance

Winter Collection, Vienna;
Baron August Stummer von Tavernock, Vienna;
Dr. C.J.K. van Aalst, Huiste Hoevelaken, near Amersfoort, 1938 - 1981,
His sale, Mak van Waay, Amsterdam, May 18, 1981, lot 2, illus.;
With David Koetser, Zurich, 1982;
Private collection, Germany.

Exhibited

Dordrecht Museum, Niederländische Stilleben aus 4 Jahrhunderten, 1954, no. 2.;
'Glück und Glas - zur Kulturgeschichte des Spessartglases,' Lohr & Dortmund 1984, no. 27, in Claus Grimm sale catalogue, pp. 355 - 58, pl. 244.

Literature

JW Moltke, Dutch and Flemish Old Masters in the Collection of Dr CJK van Aalst, Verona 1939, p.46, pl. X.

Catalogue Note

This still life of oysters, wine glasses and a carafe of (most probably) vinegar is a fairly late work by the artist. Van Aelst started to paint such smaller still lifes of exquisite victuals on his return to the Netherlands after living in France and Italy from 1645 to circa 1655. There he had developed his luxury still lifes for, among others, the Florentine nobility, gaining the patronage of Ferdinand II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Henceforth he often proudly signed paintings, including this one, in Italianate form, as 'Guill.mo van Aelst.' Van Aelst became the teacher of several distinguished still-life painters, including Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwijk. Samuel van Hoogstraten, a contemporary of van Aelst, wrote of his wor👍k, "[He] so excelled at art, and copied so well from life, that his painted works appeared not to be a picture, but life itself."

A fairly early example, which is nevertheless similar in style and atmosphere, is the painting from 1657 in Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst, i🌠nv.no. 379), which features a similar, or perhaps even the same glass tazza and silver platter. Even in such relatively simple compositions, Willem van Aelst was able to summon up an air of refinement and luxury, mainly by his masterful command of lighting and texture. He spent most of his career exploiting the juxtaposition of different textures in his paintings: the softness of the velvet tablecloth next to the sheen of the silver plate and the slick texture of the oysters, and the crunchy-soft bread embraced by the various types of reflections in the glass containers and the silver pepper box. A somewhat later example, dated 1679, from the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, is also comparable in atmosphere and subject matter.