Provenance: private collection
During his entire career, Georg Flegel assimilated still life with the challenge of portraying objects and organising them. Our Still life with grapes, apples and a...
read moreProvenance: private collection
During his entire career, Georg Flegel assimilated still life with the challenge of portraying objects and organising them. Our Still life with grapes, apples and a jug is the result of his studies, which earned him the place as the greatest still life painter in Germany at the beginning of the 17th century. After having studied the large-sized paintings of Lucas van Valckenborch, Flegel adopted a personal style by working on small formats and modest meals, as our delightful still life proves. As a worthy heir of the Flemish tradition, he includes references to the abundance of Dutch tables in his paintings. The copper we are presenting here is typical of these condensed paintings, whose objects occupy the entire height of the picture. According to the archaistic practice, Flegel adopts a relatively high viewpoint here, providing a plunging view of the food added to the arrangement and other table utensils.
The painting is composed of a great variety of forms and materials. Various types of fruit are arranged on a wooden table: apples, pears and walnuts in a pewter bowl, bunches of grapes on a plate, peaches and pears on the table itself. Small insects gravitate around the fruit while a vole goes in search of sweetmeats. An opened walnut is painted at the foot of the jug and a glass filled with wine, reminding us of life’s ephemeral nature. The motif of the glass, with its remarkably beautiful stem and its finely depicted transparency, reminds of the influence of Sebastian Stosskopf, active in Strasbourg at the same period. From a symbolic point of view, the choice of fruit and their arrangement is in no way insignificant: apples representing the Original Sin and grapes referring to the sacrifice of Christ are juxtaposed here.
This fine layer of smooth, enamelled paint in muted colours, and the boldly superimposed objects are all characteristics particular to Flegel. Basing his work on meticulous studies, our painter shows his taste here for creating paintings that seem to be accidental and painted from life. He invites viewers to lose themselves in the entertaining contemplation of the perfection of all the details, while elevating our soul to the symbolic understanding of a work based on the finality of our condition and the hope offered by the resurrection.
1563 Olmutz – 1638 Frankfurt
Georg Flegel was one of the most important 17th century still life painters, as well as the leading and most talented specialist of the genre in Germany. Mainly a...
read more1563 Olmutz – 1638 Frankfurt
Georg Flegel was one of the most important 17th century still life painters, as well as the leading and most talented specialist of the genre in Germany. Mainly a painter of table displays, decorated with German gold- and silverware and Bohemian crystal, he only occasionally added flowers to his paintings.
Although he was born in Olmutz (now in the Czech Republic) in 1563, he settled in Frankfurt and became a burgher in the course of 1597: this leads us to suppose that he had already been living there for several years. There he met Lucas van Valckenborch and his brother Martin (painters at the Court of Archdukes Ernst and Mathias), who arrived from Flanders in 1592 in search of religious tolerance. He also met Daniel and Isaac Soreau there; they had settled in nearby Hanneau.
In Georg Flegel’s works, the arrangement of the individualised objects and his brushstroke are so unique that we would be mistaken in comparing his works to those of his Dutch and Flemish contemporaries. Between 1593 and 1597, Lucas van Valckenborch and Georg Flegel worked together on large paintings. The monumental figures were painted by the Fleming while the rich still lifes were painted by the German.
Georg Flegel pursued an artistic career which ranked him among some of the greatest German masters. Archdukes Maximilian of Bavaria and Ernst of Tyrol were his distinguished protectors. He resided in Frankfurt up until his death in 1638. Jacob Marrel was his pupil and most probably Pieter Binoit.
