Sprig of White Currant with Insects

…; sale, Dr P.A. Borger (†) (Arnhem), H. Joosten (1818-82, Haarlem), Amsterdam (F. Muller), 13 November 1882, no. 55, fl. 71;¹¹Copy RKD, formerly owned by Victor de Stuers; it is illegibly inscribed against this lot, but no. 55 is one in the list of lots written by him on the end paper. A label on the reverse identifies the picture as from the Borger/Josten sale, and as no. 239 of the inventory, without giving further details. acquired by the museum, February 1884;²²NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 192 (24 February 1883); NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 164, no. 236 (14 February 1884); NHA, ARS, Kop, inv. 39, p. 342, no. 10 (26 February 1884). on loan to the Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2004-08

ObjectNumber: SK-A-793

Displayed in this work are twelve insects round a sprig of berries.¹⁰¹⁰The species displayed were kindly identified by W.N. Ellis and colleagues, Amsterdam, in a letter of 1997 (object file RMA), an abstract of which is given below. Ellis identified his collaborators as B. Brugge, J.P. Duffels, Mevr. A. Ellis-Adam, W. Hogenes and H. de Jongh. The English names for the insects and sizes of wingspans from Wikipedia, consulted 5 February 2010. The sprig is a member of the red currant family, Ribes rubrum, and is the then comparatively recent variety with transparent fruit, the white currant. Carolus Clusius (1525-1609) noted in 1589 that this had been grown in England.

The insects in the top row, reading from left, are: a tiger beetle, (family Cicindelidae, perhaps Cicindela silvatica (Linnaeus)); a whirligig beetle (family Gyrinidae), slightly inaccurately depicted; probably a rust fly (family Psilidae, perhaps Psila fimetaria (Linnaeus)); a longicorn beetle (family Cerambycidae), and unmistakably the grape wood borer (Chlorophorus varius (Müller), not found in the Netherlands today, but rather in central Europe).

The insects in the second row, reading from the left, are: a crane fly (Tipulidae, family Nephrotoma), inaccurately depicted from a dead specimen; a cream-spot tiger moth (Arctia villica (Linnaeus), found in the penultimate century in the south of the Netherlands, with a wingspan of 45 to 60 mm); a magpie moth caterpillar (family Geometridae, Abraxes grossulariata (Linnaeus) whose habitat is currant bushes) probably drawn from life, in a characteristic pose, although it is curious that it is shown with a head at each end; a female wall brown butterfly (Lasiommata megera (Linnaeus), family Satyridae, with a wingspan of 36 to 50 mm); a magpie moth (family Geometridae, Abraxes grossulariata (Linnaeus), wingspan 18 to 25 mm).

The insects on the third, bottom row, reading from the left, are: a fly (family Dryomyzidae, perhaps Neuroctena anilis); a firebug (possibly Pyrrhocoris apterus (Linnaeus), family Pyrrhocoridae); a mayfly (probably Palingenia longicauda), an ephemera not accurately shown by confusing the length of the antennae with that of the forelegs.

There can be no doubt that this signed painting is an authentic work by Jan van Kessel. Delicately executed with at least some underdrawing (on what may have been a pinkish imprimatura layer), the overlaps were reserved, while the sgraffito technique and powdered gold were used to render the butterfly. An unsigned variant in the Washington National Gallery of Art consists of ten, as opposed to twelve, insects of which seven are the same and some are differently placed around the same sprig of white currant.¹¹¹¹A.K. Wheelock Jr., The Collections of the National Gallery of Art: Systematic Catalogue, Flemish Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, Washington 2005, pp. 120-22, inv. no. 1983.19.3. Similar sprigs occur as centrepieces in other displays, but this sprig seems not to have been otherwise repeated exactly in Van Kessel’s extant corpus of such works. Baadj¹²¹²N. Baadj, Jan van Kessel I (1626-79). Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp, London/Turnhout 2016, pp. 91-93. discusses the repetition of motifs in Van Kessel’s insect paintings, and some of the insects in the Rijksmuseum painting are repeated elsewhere: for instance, the tiger beetle in a painting sold at an anonymous sale in London, 1999;¹³¹³Anonymous sale, London (Christie’s), 9 July 1999, no. 2. the mayfly and magpie moth in one of a set of four in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,¹⁴¹⁴F.G. Meijer, The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward, Oxford (The Ashmolean Museum) 2003, no. 44. the caterpillar in a painting in the High Art Museum, Atlanta;¹⁵¹⁵E.M. Zafran, European Art in the High Museum, Atlanta (Ga.) (High Museum of Art) 1984, p. 111. and the longicorn beetle in a work of 1659 with the dealer Van Haeften, 2007.¹⁶¹⁶Photograph in the RKD.

There are about sixty-five paintings of this type by Van Kessel extant, of which some are dated, between 1653¹⁷¹⁷C. Nitze-Ertz et al. (eds.), Das Flämische Stillleben 1550-1680, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Essen (Villa Hügel) 2002, no. 27, for example. and 1661.¹⁸¹⁸The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge: Catalogue of Paintings, I: (H. Gerson and J.W. Goodison) Dutch and Flemish, (J.W. Goodison and D. Sutton) French, German, Spanish, Cambridge 1960, pp. 67-68, nos. 223-24. The Rijksmuseum picture was presumably executed in this timespan. Wheelock dates it and the Washington picture to the mid-1650s. As the present picture is signed, it was perhaps painted first; Ertz and Nitze-Ertz date the Washington version to the late 1660s.¹⁹¹⁹K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, Jan van Kessel der Ältere 1629-1679; Jan van Kessel der Jüngere 1654-1708; Jan van Kessel der ‘Andere’ ca.1620 - ca.1661: Kritische Kataloge der Gemälde, Lingen 2012, no. 430 and fig. 429 (sic, given as 430).

Van der Willigen and Meijer²⁰²⁰A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 127-28. See also N. Baadj, Jan van Kessel I (1626-79). Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp, London/Turnhout 2016, p. 105. have suggested that some, now independent paintings may have been executed as part of a composite work, subsequently broken up. Those on smaller supports would have been grouped round a larger central member, like the assemblage in the Mellon collection.²¹²¹Illustrated in N. Baadj, Jan van Kessel I (1626-79). Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp, London/Turnhout 2016, p. 75, fig. 34. This formula may have been inspired by paintings by the Franckens (e.g. SK-C-286), although these were executed on a single support. If such was the case in the majority of instances, then the fact that this aspect of Van Kessel’s production is very rarely documented in contemporary sources would be explained by comparatively few composites having been created. Others, however, were executed as paintings in their own right; Van Kessel featured such an individual work for instance in his Interior of a Picture Gallery, an Allegory of Sight of 1659 at Karlsruhe.²²²²Illustrated in A. van Suchtelen and B. van Beneden, Room for Art in Seventeenth-Century Antwerp, exh. cat. Antwerp (Rubenshuis)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 2009-10, fig. 15. Whether the Rijksmuseum picture was originally part of a composite is impossible to say; its measurements are nearly those, identified by Van der Willligen and Meijer, as being of this category. The number 6 inscribed on the reverse might indicate that it was part of such a grouping.

This type of painting, which became a speciality of Van Kessel’s, has been called a study,²³²³A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 127. Schütz described it as a ‘Kunstkammerstück’, in C. Nitze-Ertz et al. (eds.), Das Flämische Stillleben 1550-1680, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Essen (Villa Hügel) 2002, pp. 61-66. which suggests an ongoing process, although its characteristic is one of high finish. A display may be a more accurate description. As Meijer²⁴²⁴A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, pp. 229-30. has observed, they are not trompe l’œil paintings, but an arrangement of discrete studies, with the animals differently viewed, some from the side and others from the top (as is the case in the present painting). He states that they are rendered life-size and very accurately (though mistakes have been observed in the Rijksmuseum display) and were rarely repeated (but see above).

No survey has been made of all of the animals depicted by Van Kessel, so it is impossible to state the proportion of those native to the Netherlands against those whose habitats were elsewhere, and therefore to speculate on whether Van Kessel relied on imported, preserved specimens. In the case of the present picture most of the species would have been available to Van Kessel in and round Antwerp and so could have been recorded from life. But the mayfly with its short lifespan and the longicorn beetle (today only found in central Europe) may have been studied from preserved specimens.

Schütz has provided the historical background to the depiction of naturalia.²⁵²⁵Schütz in C. Nitze-Ertz et al. (eds.), Das Flämische Stillleben 1550-1680, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Essen (Villa Hügel) 2002, pp. 61-66. Van Kessel may have known the work of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600) as relayed by his son’s engravings in Archetypa Studiaque Patris Georgii Hoefnagelii published in 1592.²⁶²⁶C. Nitze-Ertz et al. (eds.), Das Flämische Stillleben 1550-1680, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Essen (Villa Hügel) 2002, no. 20. More immediately he may have been inspired by small-scale paintings made by his grandfather,²⁷²⁷C. Nitze-Ertz et al. (eds.), Das Flämische Stillleben 1550-1680, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum)/Essen (Villa Hügel) 2002, no. 23. some of which he may have been able to study in the collection of his uncle, Jan Brueghel II. Baadj has placed this aspect of Van Kessel’s output within the seventeenth-century concept of curiosity.²⁸²⁸N. Baadj, Jan van Kessel I (1626-79). Crafting a Natural History of Art in Early Modern Antwerp, London/Turnhout 2016, p. 73-81.

Gregory Martin, 2022

K. Ertz and C. Nitze-Ertz, Jan van Kessel der Ältere 1629-1679; Jan van Kessel der Jüngere 1654-1708; Jan van Kessel der ‘Andere’ ca. 1620 - ca. 1661: Kritische Kataloge der Gemälde, Lingen 2012, p. 276, no. 429

1887, p. 89, no. 750; 1904, p. 145, no. 1327; 1934, pp. 150-51, no. 1327; 1960, pp. 156-57, no. 1327; 1976, p. 314, no. A 797

G. Martin, 2022, 'Jan van (I) Kessel, Sprig of White Currant with Insects, c. 1653 - c. 1661', in Flemish Paintings in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8875