Willem van Aelst
Delft 1627 - Amsterdam 1683
A Sprig of Damask Roses, white and red Carnation and a Thistle, with a Red Admiral on a stone ledge.
Oil on Canvas, 31.7 x 25.4 cm.
Signed and Dated Guill.mo.Van.Aelst.1676
ENQUIRIES
Provenance
John Henderson, London;
His sale, Christie’s London, 16 February 1882, lot 378;
H.C. Henderson, London;
His sale Christie’s London, 21 April 1888, lot 103;
Millner, United Kingdom;
Private Collection, England;
Koetser Gallery, Zurich, 2000;
Private Collection Belgium.
T. Paul, “Beschildert met een Glans”: Willem van Aelst and artistic self-consciousness in seventeenth-century Dutch still life painting, Charlottesville (VA), 2008, pp. 119-120, fig. 31, 290, cat. no. 96;
Cat. Exhibition Elegance and Refinement: the Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, Houston, Washington, 2012, under no. 26, note 2.
Additionnal Information
Our painting is part of smaller variations, painted quite late in Van Aelst’s career between 1675 and 1677, of the traditional still life that he had painted so frequently before.
These small paintings depict posies, or bunches of flowers laid casually on marble tables ledges. We know four examples of this type in his Oeuvre and the best known are located in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge and in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford.
On these four examples, showing only pink or pale red flowers, our painting is unique because it shows orange marigold and also a thistle, draping pendulously over the front edge of the table.
Willem van Aelst was baptized in Delft in May 1627. He became the pupil of his uncle Evert van Aelst (1602-1657). At the age of 16 van Aelst became a member of the local guild. From 1645-1649 he travelled in France and from 1649-1656 he was active in Italy where he was the court painter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand II de Medici. Van Aelst returned to Delft briefly in 1656. The following year he settled in Amsterdam permanently where he enjoyed a productive and successful career. Willem van Aelst painted a wide variety of Still-Life subjects such as; flower bouquets in vases, fruit still-lifes, trophies of the hunt, table top still-lifes with simple meals often in expensive settings and metal ware, and forest floor still-lifes more in the tradition of Van Schrieck. He frequently dated his work. Until 1659 he signed his paintings with “Willem van Aelst” but later works are signed with the Italian spelling of his name “Guill mo van Aelst” or simply “G. van Aelst”. His still-lifes are carefully and harmoniously constructed and painted in cool, silvery tones. His backgrounds were at first grey, later dark. The flower painter Rachel Ruysch was one of his pupils.
Still-lifes by Willem van Aelst can be found in many Museums around the world; The Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid and the Louvre in Paris.