The present lot comes from the distinguished collection of Nina R. and Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. Mr. Houghton was an influential patron of the arts as well as a renowned collector in his own right. His early focus on the collection of manuscripts and first edition books by renowned English authors later expanded to include distinguished literary objects such as two Gutenberg Bibles and the incomparable Shahnameh of Shah Tahmasp (folios of which were offered by Christie's in 1976 and 1988). He formed an outstanding collection of miniature books, English Silver, and acquired over time a small but exquisite group of paintings, including the Reekers offered here, as well as works by Thomas Sully, Jean Honore Fragonard, and Francesco Guardi among others.
Today, Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and numerous other institutions are the beneficiaries of generous donations made by Mr. Houghton from the various collections he formed during his lifetime. Notably, he endowed the Houghton Library at Harvard as a repository for the university's collections of rare books and manuscripts. Mr. Houghton was a board member of the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Museum, vice chairman of a committee to create Lincoln Center, vice president of the Pierpont Morgan Library, trustee and chairman of the Cooper Union, trustee and chairman of the Parsons School of Design, and co-founder of the Corning Museum of Glass.
Arthur Houghton married Nina Rodale in 1972, and together they lived on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with their children. Nina Rodale Houghton was a life-long supporter of educational institutions and causes, serving as Trustee of the Wye Institute, Trustee of Goucher College, a board member of the Columbus Center in Baltimore, and an advisory group member to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. She was a member of the Board of Visitors to Johns Hopkins Medicine, a member of the Board of Visitors of University of Maryland College Park, and a board member of the Aspen Institute. Before marrying Mr. Houghton, she worked with the Sea Mammal Motivational Institute (SEAMAMM) studying and training seals and sea lions aboard a research vessel with her family for four years, which was covered in depth in a November 1968 National Geographic article.

A native of Haarlem, Hendrik Reekers received his artistic training in the studios of his father, Johannes Reekers and the great still life painter Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os. Ultimately, his skill would outstrip both of his masters and he was widely regarded in his lifetime as among the most accomplished still life painters of his generation. Reekers left a regrettably small oeuvre, as he died at only 38 years old and was a self-described meticulous and slow worker, who took his time in completing his highly detailed paintings.
Reekers’s fervent attention to detail is apparent in both the harmony of his compositions and their careful attention to botanical detail. Rather than working directly from a bouquet he assembled, Reekers typically undertook numerous individual botanical studies and then combined these studies into a single harmonious composition. The artist prided himself on understanding the form, origin and significance of each individual flower. Reekers's exceptionally finely rendered work also pays homage to the painter’s artistic forebearers of the Dutch Golden Age. The pronk stilleven of the great seventeenth century painters such as Willem Kalf and Jan Davidsz. de Heem had a significant influence on Reekers, whose works were contemporary reinterpretations of one of the most beloved genres of Dutch painting during its most significant artistic pinnacle.
In the early 1840s, buoyed by the enthusiastic critical and public reception of his works, Reekers began to paint still lifes on a significantly larger scale than before. The present work, with its large scale and complex composition, is an excellent example of this more mature, confident style. Above all, like his predecessors in the genre, Reekers is able to temper the ostentation of the floral elements and bounty of fruit through a sense of refined elegance which permeates his work.