LOT 118
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Adriaen Coorte Chestnuts on a Ledge
作品估价：USD 600,000 - 800,000
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图录号：
118
拍品名称：
Adriaen Coorte Chestnuts on a Ledge
拍品描述：
Property from the Weldon Collection
Adriaen Coorte
Ijzendijke 1659/1664 - 1707 Vlissingen
Chestnuts on a Ledge
signed and dated lower left: A Coorte / 1705
oil on paper, laid down on panel
panel: 5 ⅜ by 6 ⅜ in.; 13.7 by 16.2 cm
framed: 7 ½ by 8 ⅜ in.; 19.1 by 21.3 cm
Property from the Weldon Collection
Adriaen Coorte
Ijzendijke 1659/1664 - 1707 Vlissingen
Chestnuts on a Ledge
signed and dated lower left: A Coorte / 1705
oil on paper, laid down on panel
panel: 5 ⅜ by 6 ⅜ in.; 13.7 by 16.2 cm
framed: 7 ½ by 8 ⅜ in.; 19.1 by 21.3 cm
Possibly Helmuth Meissner, Dresden;
Possibly confiscated from the above by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, March 1982;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 29 November 1988, lot 109;
Where acquired by David Koetser, Zurich;
From whom acquired by Henry and June deH. Weldon, 1990;
Private settlement between the Weldons and the Heirs of Helmuth Meissner, 2019.
The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, exhibition catalogue, Birmingham 1995, pp. 4-5, 15, cat. no. 4, reproduced;
N.T. Minty, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exhibition catalogue, New Orleans 1997, pp. 37-38, cat. no. 15, reproduced;
N.T. Minty, in An Eye for Detail: 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exhibition catalogue, N.T. Minty and J. Spicer (eds.), Baltimore 1999, pp. 36-37, cat. no. 14, reproduced;
D.R. Barnes and P.G. Rose, Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life, exhibition catalogue, Albany 2002, p. 70, cat. no. 21, reproduced;
F.G. Meijer, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford: The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, Zwolle 2003, p. 197 note 2;
A. Wheelock, in Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C. 2003, p. 11, cat. no. 13, reproduced;
T. Dibbits, “Aardbeien, abrikozen, kruisbessen en perziken: vier stillevens van Adriaen Coorte,” inBulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52(2004), p. 164 note 19;
E. Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists, Paris 2006, vol. 3, p. 1357;
Q. Buvelot, The Still Lifes of Adriaen Coorte (active c. 1683-1707), with Oeuvre Catalogue, The Hague 2008, pp. 54, 57, 118, 131,133, cat. no. 63, reproduced.
Birmingham Museum of Art, The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, 22 April – 18 June 1995, no. 4;
New Orleans Museum of Art, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 1997-1998, no. 15;
Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, An Eye for Detail: 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 20 June - 15 September 1999, no. 14;
Albany Institute of History and Art, Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life, 21 September - 8 December 2002, no. 21;
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte, 29 June - 28 September 2003, no. 13;
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Ode to Coorte, 23 February - 8 June 2008, no. XXXV.
This impressive, yet intimate still life by Adriaen Coorte is a precious rarity; it is his only known painting in existence that features chestnuts as the sole subject.1 Famous for his repeated depictions of peaches, asparagus, and wild strawberries, the artist rarely chose nuts as his primary motif. Indeed, Coorte’s oeuvre of sixty-four extant paintings includes only three examples in which nuts are the singular focus: the present work, Still Life with Hazelnuts, 1696 (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), and Still Life with Two Walnuts, 1702 (Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum).2
Dated 1705, just two years before Coorte’s death, Still Life with Chestnuts is an exceptional and characteristic example of the artist’s highly individual style. Painted life-sized, four chestnuts, some split open to reveal their interiors, are arranged on a simple stone ledge against a dark background. The composition is pared down and precisely constructed, with each form carefully isolated and described with remarkable clarity. The timeless aesthetic sensibility of Coorte’s almost minimalist, meditative compositions—so unlike the more elaborate still lifes of his contemporaries—resonates with the works of modern artists like Giorgio Morandi and Paul Cézanne.
As in all of Coorte’s late still lifes, this elegant composition concentrates on a single pictorial element situated before a dark background and illuminated as if by spotlight. He painted everyday objects—fruits, vegetables, shells—with an intense focus and a meticulous, almost scientific attention to detail. Indeed, the apparent simplicity of Coorte’s designs belies their technical refinement: the tactile surfaces of the chestnuts are rendered with extraordinary sensitivity. Both Coorte’s style and technique were highly distinctive. Almost two-thirds of the works comprising Coorte's oeuvre were executed on small sheets of paper that were subsequently affixed to panels, as is this case here, or sometimes to canvas.
Little is known about Coorte’s life, and his work was largely forgotten for centuries. The enigmatic artist was only rediscovered in the 1950s, when Laurens J. Bol published the first scholarly assessments of his work. Active between 1683 and 1707, Coorte seems to have spent his career in the province of Zeeland in the Southern Netherlands. Born to a wealthy family in Ijzendijke, Coorte worked in and around Middelburg, a prosperous maritime city and Zeeland’s capital, where he was fined one Flemish pound in 1695/1696 for selling his paintings as a non-member of the local artist’s guild (the Guild of Saint Luke). This suggests that he either did not live in Middelburg or daringly worked outside the confines of standard artistic practice.
1 According to Buvelot 2008, “a still life with five chestnuts from 1703 has vanished without trace since 1890.” It is not clear whether this painting (or the present lot) is identical to one with the same subject sold at auction in 1755 (sale of the G. Vogel collection, Rotterdam, 3 July 1755, lot 7).
2Coorte’s oeuvre includes about one hundred paintings, many of which are known only through catalogue and inventory descriptions. Only sixty four paintings are included in the “Oeuvre catalogue” section of Buvelot 2008.
Adriaen Coorte
Ijzendijke 1659/1664 - 1707 Vlissingen
Chestnuts on a Ledge
signed and dated lower left: A Coorte / 1705
oil on paper, laid down on panel
panel: 5 ⅜ by 6 ⅜ in.; 13.7 by 16.2 cm
framed: 7 ½ by 8 ⅜ in.; 19.1 by 21.3 cm
Property from the Weldon Collection
Adriaen Coorte
Ijzendijke 1659/1664 - 1707 Vlissingen
Chestnuts on a Ledge
signed and dated lower left: A Coorte / 1705
oil on paper, laid down on panel
panel: 5 ⅜ by 6 ⅜ in.; 13.7 by 16.2 cm
framed: 7 ½ by 8 ⅜ in.; 19.1 by 21.3 cm
Possibly Helmuth Meissner, Dresden;
Possibly confiscated from the above by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, March 1982;
Anonymous sale, Amsterdam, Christie's, 29 November 1988, lot 109;
Where acquired by David Koetser, Zurich;
From whom acquired by Henry and June deH. Weldon, 1990;
Private settlement between the Weldons and the Heirs of Helmuth Meissner, 2019.
The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, exhibition catalogue, Birmingham 1995, pp. 4-5, 15, cat. no. 4, reproduced;
N.T. Minty, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exhibition catalogue, New Orleans 1997, pp. 37-38, cat. no. 15, reproduced;
N.T. Minty, in An Eye for Detail: 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, exhibition catalogue, N.T. Minty and J. Spicer (eds.), Baltimore 1999, pp. 36-37, cat. no. 14, reproduced;
D.R. Barnes and P.G. Rose, Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life, exhibition catalogue, Albany 2002, p. 70, cat. no. 21, reproduced;
F.G. Meijer, The Ashmolean Museum Oxford: The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, Zwolle 2003, p. 197 note 2;
A. Wheelock, in Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C. 2003, p. 11, cat. no. 13, reproduced;
T. Dibbits, “Aardbeien, abrikozen, kruisbessen en perziken: vier stillevens van Adriaen Coorte,” inBulletin van het Rijksmuseum 52(2004), p. 164 note 19;
E. Bénézit, Dictionary of Artists, Paris 2006, vol. 3, p. 1357;
Q. Buvelot, The Still Lifes of Adriaen Coorte (active c. 1683-1707), with Oeuvre Catalogue, The Hague 2008, pp. 54, 57, 118, 131,133, cat. no. 63, reproduced.
Birmingham Museum of Art, The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, 22 April – 18 June 1995, no. 4;
New Orleans Museum of Art, In the Eye of the Beholder: Northern Baroque Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 1997-1998, no. 15;
Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, An Eye for Detail: 17th-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings from the Collection of Henry H. Weldon, 20 June - 15 September 1999, no. 14;
Albany Institute of History and Art, Matters of Taste: Food and Drink in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art and Life, 21 September - 8 December 2002, no. 21;
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte, 29 June - 28 September 2003, no. 13;
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Ode to Coorte, 23 February - 8 June 2008, no. XXXV.
This impressive, yet intimate still life by Adriaen Coorte is a precious rarity; it is his only known painting in existence that features chestnuts as the sole subject.1 Famous for his repeated depictions of peaches, asparagus, and wild strawberries, the artist rarely chose nuts as his primary motif. Indeed, Coorte’s oeuvre of sixty-four extant paintings includes only three examples in which nuts are the singular focus: the present work, Still Life with Hazelnuts, 1696 (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), and Still Life with Two Walnuts, 1702 (Budapest, Szépművészeti Múzeum).2
Dated 1705, just two years before Coorte’s death, Still Life with Chestnuts is an exceptional and characteristic example of the artist’s highly individual style. Painted life-sized, four chestnuts, some split open to reveal their interiors, are arranged on a simple stone ledge against a dark background. The composition is pared down and precisely constructed, with each form carefully isolated and described with remarkable clarity. The timeless aesthetic sensibility of Coorte’s almost minimalist, meditative compositions—so unlike the more elaborate still lifes of his contemporaries—resonates with the works of modern artists like Giorgio Morandi and Paul Cézanne.
As in all of Coorte’s late still lifes, this elegant composition concentrates on a single pictorial element situated before a dark background and illuminated as if by spotlight. He painted everyday objects—fruits, vegetables, shells—with an intense focus and a meticulous, almost scientific attention to detail. Indeed, the apparent simplicity of Coorte’s designs belies their technical refinement: the tactile surfaces of the chestnuts are rendered with extraordinary sensitivity. Both Coorte’s style and technique were highly distinctive. Almost two-thirds of the works comprising Coorte's oeuvre were executed on small sheets of paper that were subsequently affixed to panels, as is this case here, or sometimes to canvas.
Little is known about Coorte’s life, and his work was largely forgotten for centuries. The enigmatic artist was only rediscovered in the 1950s, when Laurens J. Bol published the first scholarly assessments of his work. Active between 1683 and 1707, Coorte seems to have spent his career in the province of Zeeland in the Southern Netherlands. Born to a wealthy family in Ijzendijke, Coorte worked in and around Middelburg, a prosperous maritime city and Zeeland’s capital, where he was fined one Flemish pound in 1695/1696 for selling his paintings as a non-member of the local artist’s guild (the Guild of Saint Luke). This suggests that he either did not live in Middelburg or daringly worked outside the confines of standard artistic practice.
1 According to Buvelot 2008, “a still life with five chestnuts from 1703 has vanished without trace since 1890.” It is not clear whether this painting (or the present lot) is identical to one with the same subject sold at auction in 1755 (sale of the G. Vogel collection, Rotterdam, 3 July 1755, lot 7).
2Coorte’s oeuvre includes about one hundred paintings, many of which are known only through catalogue and inventory descriptions. Only sixty four paintings are included in the “Oeuvre catalogue” section of Buvelot 2008.