Still Life With Flowers And Insects - Jacques De Gheyn Ii

Oil on parquet panel. Holland, early 17th century, attributed to Jacques de Gheyn II.
Installed in a niche in the center of the painting, a splendid bouquet of flowers rests in a glass vase. The apparent spontaneity of this work should not make us forget that this is a skilfully orchestrated composition so that each flower shines without eclipsing its neighbours. To do this, our artist, Jacques de Gheyn II, places his vanishing point relatively high so that the green leaves below form a base allowing the transition with the vase. Each form of flower then offers possibilities of symmetry within the whole: the drooping fritillaries counterbalance the springing columbines, the small sprigs of lily of the valley in the center balance the masses of roses and chrysanthemums; finally the tulips, object of all the passions and speculations at the beginning of the XVIIth century, constitute the central axis of the composition. The harmony of tones contributes to making the whole readable by the alternation of warm and cold colors on a dark architectural background. While stimulating a feeling of life to the whole, the few insects present around the bouquet increase the moral sense of a work where aesthetic and symbolic pleasures, beauty and vanity meet. Caterpillars called to metamorphose into butterflies on one side, plants with ephemeral blooms on the other: here everything converges to remind us of the brief and cyclical nature of life. Having enjoyed great renown as an engraver, Jacques de Gheyn II was also one of the very first Dutch flower painters, even before Ambrosius Bosschaert. Thus, some twenty watercolors painted on vellum bear witness to the preparatory work that he used, from the very beginning of the 1600s, to paint floral still lifes in oil, of which very few copies have come down to us. The Mauritshuis in The Hague has one of them, dated 1612, whose composition can be compared to our painting. The success was such for his still lifes that Jacques de Gheyn II had as a client the Emperor Rudolf II and that he received 1000 florins in 1606 from the Stadhouder for a painting which was then presented to Marie de Médicis. His contemporaries were full of praise for him. Thus, Karel van Mander sees in him “a complete artist, both capable of painting from the motif and from his imagination”. Finally, Constantin Huygens, secretary of Frédéric-Henri d'Orange Nassau, praises in his memoirs the watercolors of Jacques De Gheyn II whose "flowers and leaves [...] are painted with grace, elegance and realism".

We have chosen to present the work to you in a Tusco-Emilian casseta frame decorated with scrolling foliage in bullinato on the sides, first quarter of the 17th century.
Dimensions: 56 x 43 cm - 72 x 60 cm with the frame.

Jacques de Gheyn II (Antwerp, 1565 - The Hague, March 29, 1629) was born into a family of engravers and continued his apprenticeship with the famous Glotzius around 1585 in Haarlem. From 1590, he produced his own prints in Amsterdam, then moved to Leyden from 1595 to 1602 where he collaborated in particular with the great philosopher and jurist, Grotius. In 1605, he moved to The Hague where he remained until his death, working among others for the Orange Nassau family. He then abandoned engraving in favor of oil painting, of which only about twenty paintings remain today. His son, Jacques de Gheyn III, was also an engraver but probably painted very few pictures.

Bibliography:
- SWAN, Claudia, Art, Science and Witchcraft in Early Modern England: Jacques de Gheyn II, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.
- TAYLOR, Paul, Dutch Flower Painting: 1600-1720, Yale University Press, London, 1995.
- REGTEREN ALTENA (van), IQ, Jacques de Gheyn: Three Generations, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague, 1983.