1020 - Jacob van Hulsdonck

Jacob van Hulsdonck Still Life with a Vase of Flowers, Meat, Fruit, Bread and Butter Oil on panel. 62.5 x 84.5 cm. Signed lower left: IVHULSDONCK F (I, V and H in ligature). Provenance North German private collection. The present still life, belonging to the genre of the 'table-top' or 'laid table', depicts in bird's-eye view various plates and foodstuffs arranged on a table largely covered by a woven damask cloth. The central axis is formed by a glass vase with roses and tulips, a gleaming pewter plate bearing a piece of dark smoked ham, and an elaborately decorated knife with a handle of mother-of-pearl and ebony, its pommel ending in a shod horse's hoof. Grouped around this central axis are numerous further objects, presented to the viewer not in strict symmetry but with few overlaps. These include a second pewter plate with three pig's trotters, one upright and one overturned glass, a Wan-Li porcelain plate with butter, a bowl of small strawberries and a plate with a slice of melon on vine leaves. Scattered between these objects, directly on the table or the tablecloth, are a few cherries, bread rolls and individual leaves that complete the arrangement. The Antwerp painter Jacob van Hulsdonck worked primarily as a painter of flower pieces and fruit baskets. Considerably rarer are his 'laid tables', which stand in the tradition of Osias Beert the Elder. Certain motifs recur throughout Hulsdonck's 'laid tables', among them the overturned and broken wine glass – a Berkemeyer – which here is pushed close to the left edge of the picture. The rendering of the transparent and shimmering material of glass was in itself already a demonstration of a painter's exceptional skill; Hulsdonck raises the challenge still further through his depiction of the splinters of the shattered glass and the droplets on and beside it, which were no less difficult to paint. A trompe-l'œil character attaches equally to the two flies that have settled on one of the pig's trotters and on the bread roll at the lower edge of the picture, as well as to the knife projecting beyond the edge of the table, which thereby creates the illusion of a space between the table and the viewer. We are grateful to Dr Fred G. Meijer, Amsterdam, for confirming the authorship of this work by Jacob van Hulsdonck on the basis of digital photographs. A copy of the painting by another hand, in which only the jug and the glass in the background are transposed, is housed in the National Gallery in Athens.