157 - ABRAHAM LEROY (Active in Paris and Nancy c. 1640–1660)

ABRAHAM LEROY (Active in Paris and Nancy c. 1640–1660) Still Life on an Entablature Oil on canvas Dimensions: 51 x 80 cm The painting depicts a porcelain bowl containing cheese, a glass of red wine, a pewter jug, a still-smoldering candle, a pipe, a knife, two smoked herrings, bread, and a mouse on a cornice, with the monogram “R” in the lower right corner of the bread. Provenance: Presumably the Hermann Wedewer Collection (1811–1871), Wiesbaden; his estate sale, J. M. Heberle, Lempertz, Cologne, May 1, 1899, lot 197 (listed under the name Jan Albertsz Rootius); Private collection, Germany; auction, Lempertz, Cologne, December 6, 1997, lot 1140 (attributed to a 17th-century German artist); Private collection, Paris; art dealer Jan de Maere, Brussels; acquired from the previous owner by the current owner prior to the Dorotheum auction in Vienna, which conducted research with Prof. Fred Meijer, who confirmed the attribution after examining this painting in person. Now in a private collection, Genoa. This composition is one of only two known works by the artist’s own hand, both of comparable size and with nearly identical compositions. The first, formerly in the Jacques Leegenhoek collection in Paris, was sold at Koller in Zurich on March 30, 2012 (lot 3030, then cataloged under the name Abraham Le Roy). An inscription on the back of this Leegenhoek version made it possible to identify the artist—the monogram “R,” visible on the small round roll in both paintings, serves as his discreet signature. Michel Faré considered Abraham Le Roy to be one of the finest representatives of 17th-century French archaic still life, while noting that the artist had long remained obscure due to a lack of biographical information and the rarity of his surviving works (Faré, *Le grand siècle de la nature morte en France*, Fribourg, 1974, p. 142 ff.). Le Roy worked in Nancy and likely also in Paris, where an Abraham Le Royer (or Le Roy), son of Jean, is documented as a painter of miniature flowers in watercolor on parchment. Stylistically, the work follows in the tradition of earlier Dutch still lifes, such as those by Georg Flegel, Floris van Schooten, Osias Beert, and Clara Peeters. The little mouse featured in the composition evokes, in particular, certain animal motifs found in Flegel’s work: paired with the smoldering candle, it draws on the classical symbolic repertoire of the Vanitas, reminding us of the fragility and transience of life.