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| | Old Master Paintings & Drawings IV |
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| A Forest Still Life Oil on canvas 24 x 21 inches (60 x 53 cm) Signed Elias V Den Broeck | |
At the age of fifteen, Elias van den Broeck was already a pupil of the Amsterdam flower painter Cornelius Kick. He was also believed to have studied under Jan Davidsz de Heem and Ernst Stuven and in 1673 was a master at the Antwerp guild of painters. His still life studies reveal great truth to nature and are rendered with extraordinary delicacy and skill. In fact due to rivals who were jealous of his success in Antwerp, rumors were invented and circulated to suggest that his lifelike depiction of butterflies and insects was achieved by adhering the actual bodies to the canvas! Unfortunately his reputation was tainted in Antwerp due to such invented gossip and Broeck lost his local clientele. He returned to Amsterdam where he successfully continued his career. Broeck's inspiration for forest still lives came from Otto Marseus van Schiek who lived for a time in Italy where he specialized in painting reptiles and insects before returning to the Netherlands in the 1560's. Few interesting species of reptiles existed in the Netherlands and Schriek's experience in Italy may have consequently been quite valuable to van den Broeck. Schriek also frequently used the same technique rendered in our painting of mixing sand with the priming then applied to the support before actually painting; this was done in order to enhance an earthy feeling to the composition. Our painting is exemplary of the artist's meticulous style, especially apparent in the execution of the foliage with deeply incised veins and sharp edges. Also typical is the precise accuracy in the depictions of insects—snails emerging from their shells, the grasshopper and other insects in flight including beetles and a butterfly. | ||