Still life with three peaches on a stone ledge and a butterfly

Catalogue Note

Little known during his own lifetime, and virtually forgotten in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the still-lifes of Adriaen Coorte have nevertheless struck a vital chord with the modern mind. It was only in 1903 that a major museum – the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam – finally acquired a work by him, but since then he has become one of the most sought after of all Dutch still life painters of the 17th century. His sparse but supremely balanced arrangements of the humblest of natural subjects, delicately picked out in light against austere black backgrounds, speak to us in a way similar to the astonishing bodegonesof the early Spanish painter Juan Sanchez Cotan. This tiny picture is one of his very finest works, and following its discovery in 2011 is without question one of the most beautiful recent additions to his known oeuvre. Read more...