Acquired by the late owner at an unknown date;
Thence by inheritance.

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. These two paintings have wax and resin linings and older stretchers, which are both firm and secure. Flowers with a girl and a putto. The overall condition of the paint is strong, with relatively little retouching: at the upper right edge in the sky, over a filling in the top left corner, a few little surface touches on the putto and over a scratch or two on the girl, a few also quite superficial on the hand, and various scattered touches in the flowers, with rather more in the orange dahlia at the lower centre near the hand. Such orange pigments are frequently vulnerable and worn, as this is. The ribbons against the sky may have been strengthened and show pentiments. The lower sky itself is quite thin, although clearly originally loosely brushed, and there are a few minor touches in the denser upper blue sky. The hair of the putto and a few other places are also sometimes rather thin with a little strengthening. However the extremely vigorous brushwork and brilliant colour is well preserved generally. Fruit with a gardener. The base edge has quite widespread old fillings and retouchings, with just a few at the right edge and a certain number down the left edge. There are some small retouched places on the pomegranates, a few on the tree trunk behind, which is rather thin, and some in the grapes. The peaches in the centre of the immediate foreground are thin under the highlights on the bloom, but the gardener himself and the main mound of fruit in the still life are beautifully preserved overall. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Abraham Brueghel came from a family of painters - he was the son of the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel the Younger - and although born in Antwerp in 1631, he worked for much of his life in Italy; in Rome from 1659 and in Naples from 1675 until his death. He specialised as a still-life painter in Rome and monopolised that market from the mid- to late 1660s onwards.¹  His sumptuous still-life arrangements of fruit and flowers, of which this pair is a fine example, often included life-size figures painted by other artists: Guillaume Courtois (called il Cortese), Giovanni Battista Gaulli (called il Baciccio) and Giacinto Brandi are all known to have collaborated with Brueghel, providing the figures for his still lifes. This was entirely normal practice in Rome: Mario Nuzzi, before him, had collaborated with the figure-painters FrancescoLauri, Carlo Maratta and Giacinto Brandi. For Brueghel these collaborations seem to have suited his needs perfectly, particularly when the figures associated with either fruit or flowers took on allegorical meanings (as here): the Still life of flowers with a young lady and putto might symbolise Spring, whilst the Still life of fruit with a bearded man picking grapes from a vine might reasonably be assumed to represent Autumn. Such pairings were not uncommon in Roman 17th-century still-life painting and numerous still lifes by Brueghel can be read in this allegorical key: compare, for example, his signed Still life of fruit with grapes on a vine, a young lady standing beneath (an Allegory of Autumn?), in the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, or his Reclining woman with putti holding a fruit-basket and flower garland in a palatial garden (an Allegory of Summer).²

In 1663 the Sicilian collector Antonio Ruffo acquired two still lifes by Brueghel, with figures apparently by another hand, illustrating Spring and Autumn:³  though it might be tempting to associate that description with these two works, Ruffo's pair measured 7 by 5 palmi and Autumn had a negro slave, thus eliminating a possible identification with the present pair.  The paintings are by no means unique in Abraham Brueghel's oeuvre, however, both in their subject and pairing.  Although a chronology for these works is extremely hard to establish, it is generally assumed that still lifes such as these were produced from the mid-1660s until Brueghel’s departure for Naples in 1675. Indeed the presence of a signature and a date of 1669 on a Still life of fruit and flowers with a girl arranging figs in a bowl in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, seems to confirm this.⁴  It was probably towards the end of this period that Brueghel reached the level of sophistication exemplified by his Still life of fruit and flowers with a bearded man holding a basket of grapes (An Allegory of Autumn), which is a work of collaboration between Brueghel and Courtois.⁵

The figures in these two paintings are by a collaborator of Abraham Brueghel's, and they may even by two different hands.  Although unusual, this would not be a unique occurrence in Brueghel's oeuvre: in a letter to Ruffo dated 31 July 1666, Brueghel talks of two still-life paintings in which the figure is done by Brandi in one and by Baciccio in the other.⁶  The figure of the girl (Spring) in the present pair comes closest in style to Giacinto Brandi (Poli 1621-1691 Rome) and she resembles the model in Brueghel’s signed painting in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.⁷  The male figure (Autumn) is closer in handling, however, to Guillaume Courtois (St Hippolyte, Franche-Comté 1628-1679 Rome) and is rather like the latter's Saint Anthony Abbot, painted in 1670.⁸  We are extremely grateful to Ludovica Trezzani for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.

1  Michele Pace, called Michelangelo del Campidoglio, who had painted still lifes before him, died in Rome in 1669 and Mario Nuzzi, the successful flower-painter, also died four years later (in 1673).
2  The first, oil on canvas (110 by 143 cm.), is reproduced in L. Trezzani, in G. & U. Bocchi, Pittori di Natura Morta a Roma. Artisti Stranieri 1630-1750, Viadana 2005, p. 126, fig. AB.7; the second, also oil on canvas (177 by 255 cm.), is reproduced in colour in the same book on p. 130, fig. AB.12.
3  A series of letters between the painter and Antonio Ruffo, dating from the second half of the 1660s, have survived and in them Brueghel details his working methods and his friendships with other painters, particularly those with whom he collaborated. For a fuller discussion of the letters see L. Trezzani, op. cit., pp. 117 ff..
4  Reproduced in colour in Trezzani, ibid., p. 126, fig. AB.6.
5  Idem, reproduced in colour on p. 123, fig. AB.4.
6  "... doi schizzetti di doi quadri che ho fatto, dove Giacinto Brandi mi ha fatto la figura a uno e Baciccio genovese all'altro. Ho fatto qualche cosa per loro e in contraccambio mi hanno fatto quelle figure e poi vi ho fatto li fiori a gusto mio e con studio..." ["...two sketches of two paintings that I have done, where Giacinto Brandi did one figure for me and the genoese Baciccio the other. I did something for them and in exchange they did those figures and then I did the flowers to my own liking and with care..."].
7  Trezzani, idem, reproduced in colour on p. 126, fig. AB.7. The figure-painter has never been firmly identified.
8  The pa🔯inting, formerly with P. & D. Colnaghi Ltd., London, is signed and dated 1670: infor൩mation kindly provided by Ludovica Trezzani.