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Lot Essay
The genre of paintings combining figures with still life elements was first popularized in Rome by artists like Michelangelo Cerquozzi in the mid-seventeenth century and later found favor in Naples as well. A logical progression was the production of collaborative works, which employed the skills of specialist still life and figure painters. Among the earliest and best known examples of such paintings are the decorative scheme of flowers and putti for two painted mirrors that Carlo Maratti and Mario Nuzzi executed for the Palazzo Colonna at some point after 1654.
Though trained in his native Antwerp as a still life painter, Abraham Brueghel, the son of Jan Brueghel II, departed for Italy in 1649 to complete a commission of nine still life paintings for Prince Antonio Ruffo in Sicily in that year. A decade later, he moved to Rome, married and was admitted to the Compagnia di San Luca. In addition to his independent still life paintings, Brueghel collaborated in Rome with a number of figural painters. Among his most frequent collaborators was the French-born artist Guillaume Courtois, with whom he painted, among other works, a Ceres seated by a fountain attended with putti which was formerly in the collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
John Spike was the first scholar to posit Courtois as the hand responsible for the putti in the present pair of canvases (loc. cit.). Francesco Porzio and Gianluca and Ulisse Bocchi subsequently fully endorsed this line of thought (loc. cit.). Though the final two digits of the date are not entirely legible, the latter scholars have further suggested a date in the 1670s, no doubt before Brueghel settled in Naples around 1675 or a few years earlier. Upon his move south, Brueghel introduced such Flemish-Roman decorative still lifes to the Neapolitan market, often collaborating with the city’s leading painters, including Luca Giordano.
Though trained in his native Antwerp as a still life painter, Abraham Brueghel, the son of Jan Brueghel II, departed for Italy in 1649 to complete a commission of nine still life paintings for Prince Antonio Ruffo in Sicily in that year. A decade later, he moved to Rome, married and was admitted to the Compagnia di San Luca. In addition to his independent still life paintings, Brueghel collaborated in Rome with a number of figural painters. Among his most frequent collaborators was the French-born artist Guillaume Courtois, with whom he painted, among other works, a Ceres seated by a fountain attended with putti which was formerly in the collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
John Spike was the first scholar to posit Courtois as the hand responsible for the putti in the present pair of canvases (loc. cit.). Francesco Porzio and Gianluca and Ulisse Bocchi subsequently fully endorsed this line of thought (loc. cit.). Though the final two digits of the date are not entirely legible, the latter scholars have further suggested a date in the 1670s, no doubt before Brueghel settled in Naples around 1675 or a few years earlier. Upon his move south, Brueghel introduced such Flemish-Roman decorative still lifes to the Neapolitan market, often collaborating with the city’s leading painters, including Luca Giordano.
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Lot 30
Sale 19740
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Vases of flowers with putti in a landscape; and Garlands of flowers with putti in a landscape
ABRAHAM BRUEGHEL (ANTWERP 1631-1697 NAPLES) AND GUILLAUME COURTOIS, IL BORGOGNONE (ST. HIPPOLYTE 1628-1679 ROME)
Estimate: USD 100,000 - 150,000
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