1044 - Elias van den Broeck

Elias van den Broeck Flower still life with insects Oil on canvas (relined). 78.5 x 64.5 cm. Signed lower right: Elias v. den Broeck. Provenance Galerie Fischer, Lucerne 13.–21.11.1979, lot 1367. – Private collection, Switzerland. Elias van den Broeck was probably born in Amsterdam in 1652, and not in Antwerp, as is still occasionally stated in older literature. At a very young age, he began an apprenticeship with a silversmith, but soon afterwards moved to the workshop of the Amsterdam painter Cornelis Kick. He trained there for around four years. In September 1669, Jan Davidsz de Heem took him under contract in Utrecht. The surviving document shows that de Heem bound him to his workshop for two years with an annual income of 200 guilders. Van den Broeck must already have been a well-trained painter at this point, as de Heem refers to him in this contract as ‘a widely renowned painter’ (F. G. Meijer: Jan Davidsz de Heem. 2024, pp. 33, 378–79). In 1672, Elias van den Broeck accompanied de Heem to Antwerp, where he was soon admitted to the Guild of St Luke there. It was only after de Heem’s death that he returned to Amsterdam. Despite his long collaboration with Jan Davidsz de Heem, Elias van den Broeck developed his own distinctive style. His still lifes are easily recognisable and truly unmistakable. Particularly characteristic are the upward-spiralling composition lines in his floral arrangements and the importance the painter attaches to the foliage. Alongside the variety of green tones, he likes to depict individual leaves from the reverse side, so that he can then draw the delicate network of their veins with the utmost precision.