Arnoldus Bloemers (Dutch, 1786-1844). Still life with flowers, fruit, and walnuts. Oil on canvas. 14 x 12 inches (35.6 x...

Description

Arnoldus Bloemers (Dutch, 1786-1844)
Still life with flowers, fruit, and walnuts
Oil on canvas
14 x 12 inches (35.6 x 30.5 cm)
Signed in monogram lower left: AB

Property from the Schumacher Collection

PROVENANCE:
Marie Louise Ingold Schumacher, acquired in the Netherlands, 1924;
Private collection, Battleground, Washington.

This bouquet of springtime flowers and fruit on a marble ledge is the work of the Dutch painter Arnoldus Bloemers. Although he flourished in the early decades of the nineteenth-century, more than 130 years following the Golden Age of flower painting in The Netherlands, Bloemers was nonetheless a true inheritor of that astonishing tradition of botanical accuracy, sensitivity, and technical wizardry that resulted in zealously coveted paintings of almost miraculous verisimilitude. Born in Amsterdam, Bloemers was instructed by Antonie Piera, but principally imitated the work of Jan van Huysum-the flower painter responsible for keying up the seventeenth-century palette, doing away with the rich dark backgrounds, and ushering in a more decorative approach to the flower piece to keep pace with the taste of the French Rococo.

Active in The Hague, Bloemers preferred a palette of warm golden hues, which became a trademark for him. In the present painting, the vase is a golden Neoclassical form resembling Wedgwood Yellow Jasperware, which complements the tone of the indefinite background plane and pink/yellow slab on which the still life including grapes, a peach, and walnuts is arranged. The bouquet features a sprig of blue periwinkle (vinca), a stem of double pink hyacinth, yellow ranunculas, a white hibiscus, poppy anemones, a deep red-purple primula, and nasturtiums and their leaves turning into and out of the light. Bloemers initialed the painting at lower left in such a way that the letters appear to have been carved into the edge of the plinth. The painting has been in the possession of the same Dutch family for three generations.


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