A Vanitas Still Life with a Flag, Candlestick, Musical Instruments, Books, Writing Paraphernalia, Globes and Hourglass

1662

Edwaert Collier
Dutch, 1642-1708

The meticulously executed still life paintings of Edwaert Collier unite the Dutch vanitas tradition with a striking focus on contemporary printed material. This monumental work, signed and dated 1662, is among his earliest dated paintings. Yet it is a rare example of his use of publications focusing on Dutch global exploration. The specific locations highlighted in the globes and books, the Americas, uphold the vanitas message communicated in the scene: while this new knowledge is documented with an ostensible permanence through printing, the actual governance of these new lands could be—and was for the Dutch—fleeting.

Status: On View, Gallery 212
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Edwaert Collier
Title: A Vanitas Still Life with a Flag, Candlestick, Musical Instruments, Books, Writing Paraphernalia, Globes and Hourglass
Place: Holland (Object made in)
Date: 1662
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Eduwaert / Collier / 1662
Dimensions: 98 x 129.7 cm (38 1/2 x 51 in.)
Credit Line: Through prior bequest of Joseph Winterbotham; Rhoades Foundation and Julius Lewis Acquisition Endowment Fund; European Painting Discretionary Fund
Reference Number: 2020.317
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E. Zarnowska, La Nature morte hollandaise: Les principaux représentants ses origines, son influence (Brussels/Maastricht: A. A. Stols, 1929), 11 (as, erroneously, dated 1665).

Chapel Hill, North Carolina, William Ackland Memorial Art Center, The Elizabeth and Fielding Lewis Marshall Collection, March 22–April 23, 1961 (no catalogue).
London, Sotheby’s, Exhibition of the Marshall collection : which will be sold by auction by Sotheby & Co. in several parts during 1974: the exhibition to be held in the large galleries 34-35 New Bond Street, London, December 31, 1973–January 8, 1974, no. 19 (ill.).

Count Edward Raczynski, Warsaw and London, by 1929 [according to Zarnowska 1929]; probably sold to Mr. and Mrs. Fielding Lewis Marshall, Charlottesville, VA, and London, by 1961 [according to Chapel Hill 1961]; sold, Bonhams, London, March 28, 1974, lot 28. Private collector, by 1998; sold, Sotheby’s, London, December 17, 1998, lot 39. Sold, Sotheby’s, New York, January 31, 2013, lot 68, to private collector, Greenwich, CT; sold to Salomon Lilian Dutch Old Master Paintings, Amsterdam, November 20, 2019; offered to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2020.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.