1040 - Abraham Mignon

Abraham Mignon Floral and fruit garlands Oil on panel. 40 x 31 cm. Signed lower left: Ab. Mignon: fe[c]. Certificate Dr M. Kraemer-Noble, Munich, 10.8.2026. Provenance Deiker Collection, Braunfels. – Private sale into private collection, Baden-Württemberg. – Private sale 1991 into private collection, Hesse. – Since then passed on to current owner. Literature M. Kraemer-Noble: Abraham Mignon 1640–1679. Leigh-on-Sea, 1973, no. A14, ill. 8. – M. Kraemer-Noble: Abraham Mignon 1640–1679. Petersberg 2007, no. 4, pp. 52-53, ill. In 1649, at the age of nine, Abraham Mignon began his career as a painter when he entered the Frankfurt workshop of Jacob Marrell, a pupil of Georg Flegel who had close artistic ties to Utrecht. His later teacher, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, the master of flower and fruit still lifes, became another artistic influence during Mignon’s brief creative period; Mignon himself died at the age of 40. Yet despite his short life, his flower and fruit still lifes are outstanding works in their genre. As early as the 18th century, the art historian Arnold Houbraken had emphasised the significance of the German artist Abraham Mignon for Dutch painting of the Golden Age. The bouquet in this flower and fruit still life is held in place by a glossy blue ribbon tied to a nail and stands out against a dark background in a strictly horizontal and vertical arrangement. This geometrically inspired compositional style, as Kraemer-Noble describes, is a distinctive feature of Mignon’s work and is softened by individual interwoven ears of corn, grasses and berries (Kraemer-Noble 2007, op. cit., p. 52). The flowers, such as roses, anemones and hibiscus in full bloom, glistening with dewdrops, and the overripe fruits – some of which have been nibbled by the insects crawling across the picture – equally speak of the beauty and transience of these earthly treasures. Previously only featured as a black-and-white illustration in the catalogue raisonné published in 2007, this work by Mignon, after having spent several generations in various private collections, now reveals its captivating brilliance of colour and its character as a vanitas still life par excellence.