Osias Beert

Provenance: private collection

A remarkable figure in the early days of the development of the still life in Flanders at the beginning of the 17th century, Osias Beert remained long...

Provenance: private collection

A remarkable figure in the early days of the development of the still life in Flanders at the beginning of the 17th century, Osias Beert remained long unrecognised: his name was only rescued from obscurity in 1938, at the moment when the pictorial genre was enjoying a great vogue among amateurs and collectors.

Since then, it has been discovered that he was registered as a student of the painter Andries van Baseroo from 1596 onwards and became a master in 1602. On 8 in January 1606, he married Margarita Ykens, the aunt of the painter Frans Ykens. This union produced a son, Osias Beert the Younger, baptized on 14 April 1622, who later became a still life painter of in his own right.

A member from 1615 to 1623 of the famous brotherhood De Olijftak, Osias Beert was also, as was common practice at the time, merchant trading in cork. In addition to his own son, five of his students have currently been established: Fr. van der Borcht (1610), P. Doens (1611), his nephew Frans Ykens (1615), P. Pontius, the famous engraver  (1616) and J. Willemsen (1618).

Painstakingly constructing his harmonious compositions in which meticulous attention to detail is combined with a precise arrangement of objects with forms that are detached from each other in a highly legible way, Osias Beert generally juxtaposes food, dishes and precious curios on the inclined surface of a table, positioning them within various planes in space to increase their legibility. The still archaic frontal and distributive presentation, the highly attentive execution with its virtuoso realism drawn from the Flemish tradition, the dark abstract grounds and the bright, enamel-like colours are all the recurrent characteristics of an œuvre that immediately positions Osias Beert at the very forefront of the first generation of Flemish painters to specialize in the depiction of banketjes. His floral compositions, generally dense and luxuriant, are defined by their precise realism and extremely diverse palette.

Using alternatively deep and sparkling tones, Beert successfully maintains a harmonious balance between form and colour to create compositions, which still fascinate viewers centuries later.

In the extreme simplicity of its layout, this still life concentrates the very essence of the refined art that has led Osias Beert to be ranked among the best of the pioneers of the genre of the still life in Flanders. A simple dish in Wan-Li porcelain filled with apples, pears, peaches and apricots is all that this painter needs to construct a composition that immediately charms the viewer.

The fine translucence of the glazes is heightened by the contrast between the warm and bright hues of the fruits and the softer, more muted tones of the porcelain dish.

The idea of vanitas, which is inherent to the genre, is made explicit by the wormholes and other traces of likely corruption discernible in the plump flesh and leaves of the fruit.

The value of this little panel is accentuated by the rarity of compositions with single motifs in the oeuvre of a painter who was more adept in the realization of scenes of tables laden with multiple elements.  For example, a similar dish of fruit appears in the Vase of tulips with four dishes of fruit and a glass (panel, 56 x 78 cm. Cf. E. Greindl, Les peintres de nature morte en Flandre au XVIIe siècle, Brussels, 198, p. 32, cat. n°72, fig. 12) or again in the Banketje with four dishes of fruit and sweets and a glass jar (panel, 65.3 x 83.5 cm. Cf. E. Greindl, Les peintres de nature morte en Flandre au XVIIe siècle, Brussels, 198, p. 34, cat. n°85, fig. 16).

There too, a similar butterfly and the central motif of the peach cut in half are included, the latter being an element so recurrent in Beert’s work that it can be read as his virtual hidden signature.

1580 – Antwerp – 1623

A remarkable figure in the early days of the development of the still life in Flanders at the beginning of the 17th century, Osias Beert remained long unrecognized: his name...