This vibrant and highly detailed assemblage of flowers in a wicker basket was painted by one of the greatest seventeenth-century still-life specialists, Clara Peeters. A recent rediscovery, this unpublished work is an important addition to the Flemish female artist’s small corpus and is notably one of only a few examples in which she employed the copper medium.¹ Likely dating to about 1615, this magnificent floral still-life appears at auction here for the first t.mes in over two generations, having remained in the same family collects ion since the early 20^th century.

Only about forty paintings comprise Clara Peeters œuvre. Nearly all are still lifes that feature realistically and precisely defined objects, animals, comestibles, or botanicals. In this ambitious floral still life, Peeters has carefully rendered a delicate array of flowers—including roses, carnations, tulips, narcissi, irises, love-in-a-mist, and larkspur, among others—that overflow from a wicker basket. Petals and blooms have fallen onto the stone ledge upon which the basket rests, as a large cricket and a butterfly animate the scene nearby. A crisp light source from the upper left illuminates every painstakingly rendered detail, while the contrast against the soft darkness of the background further enhances the brilliance and elegance of every individual facet captured.

A characteristic feature of Peeters’s artistic process is her incorporation of similar objects and elements, albeit in different arrangements, in her still lifes. This copper, for example, bears closest compositional similarities to a panel by Peeters in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo (fig. 1), which boasts a nearly identical basket of flowers set behind a silver tazza.² The same wicker basket appears in several other paintings by Peeters, for example as a vessel for fruit in a large copper in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford,³ as well in two other panels today in a private collects ion, Antwerp.⁴ Additionally, a comparable choice and arrangement of florals appear in her still life in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (fig. 2),⁵ which also features the fallen white rose, and in her Bouquet of flowers with a field mouse and an ear of wheat in a private collects ion (fig. 3).⁶ While a nearly identical cricket can be found in various examples by her, this copper is the only painting that so prominently features a butterfly with outstretched wings.

Clara Peeters was undoubtedly a pioneer who paved the way for other female artists who specialised in the still-life genre, including Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwijck. Although very little is known of her biography, Peeters was almost certainly active in Antwerp, as several of her panels and coppers bear the marks of that city. Various attempts have been made to identify her in archives with certainty, but perhaps the most convincing suggestion is that put forth in 2016 by Jean Bastiaensen who proposed she was the Clara Lamberts who was born in Mechelen in 1587, married the Antwerp painter Hendrick Peeters in 1605, and later died in Ghent after 1636.⁷ Her reputation as an artist seems to have stretched far beyond Antwerp, as rarely any examples by her are recorded in early Antwerp inventories, but by 1666 two kitchen still lifes by her are already recorded in the Royal collects ion in Madrid.⁸

Apart from the sparsity of biographical details known of her life, that Peeters only dated her paintings on occasion precludes a definitive chronology of her œuvre. Her earliest still life dates to 1607, and features sweets, rosemary, jewels, a burning candle, and two glasses, all rendered from a distinctly high vantage point, a compositional choice that may lend weight to the hypothesis that Osias Beert the Elder was her teacher.⁹ Several examples by her are dated to 1611, including a group in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid,¹⁰ but a seminal year for her was around 1612 when she painted her first independent floral still lifes.¹¹ For the present copper, Dr. Fred G. Meijer, to whom we are grateful, has suggested a date of about 1615, the same date that has been plausibly proposed for the aforementioned example in the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo.

We are grateful to Dr. Fred G. Meijer for endorsing the present attribution on the basis of firsthand inspection and for his assistance in the cataloguing of this entry.

This painting has been recently cleaned and restored by Etienne van Vyve. In his treatment report, which is available upon request, Van Vyve notes: ‘une signature est visible dans le coin inférieur gauche « CLARA P ». Par précaution, la surface n’a pas été dévernie dans cette zone. Il semble qu’une signature originale ait été rehaussée lors de la dernière intervention sur l’œuvre.’¹²

¹ As noted by Vergara in his 2016 catalogue on the artist, only around four other examples by the artist are known on copper. P. 80, no. 4.

² Inv. KM 103.173, oil on oak panel, 31.8 x 45.8 cm.

³ Inv. WA1940.2.61, oil on copper, 64 x 89 cm.

⁴ A. Vergara, The Art of Clara Peeters, exh. cat., Antwerp and Madrid 2016, pp. 84–91, nos 5–6, both reproduced.

⁵ Inv. 2020.22, oil on panel, 46 x 32 cm.

⁶ Private collects ion, Montreal, oil on panel, 27 x 21 cm, signed lower left: Clara . P.  Vergara 2016, p. 16, reproduced fig. 3.

⁷ J. Bastiaensen, ‘Finding Clara: Establishing the Biographical Details of Clara Peeters (ca. 1587–after 1636)’, in Boletín del Museo del Prado 34, no. 52, 2016, pp. 17–31.

⁸ Museo del Prado, Madrid, inv. nos P1619 and P1621, both oil on panel, approx. 50.4 x 71 cm., signed and dated CLARA. P. Ao 1611. As discussed in Vergara 2016, pp. 17, and 92–9, nos 7–8.

⁹ Private collects ion, oil on panel, 24 x 37 cm, signed and dated lower left: CLARA. P 1607.

¹⁰ See, for example, inv. no. P1620, oil on panel, 52 x 73 cm.; inv. no. 1619, oil on panel, 50.4 x 71 cm.; inv. no. 1621, oil on panel, 50 x 72 cm.

¹¹ A signed and dated floral still life from 1612 appeared at Replica Shoes ’s London on 6 December 1995, lot 60. Oil on panel, 65.7 x 50.2 cm., signed and dated lower left: .CLARA. P.A° 1612.

¹² As translated, 'A signature can be seen in the lower left corner: "CLARA P". As a precaution, the surface has not been stripped of its varnish in this area. It appears that an original signature was strengthened during the last intervention on the work.'