Trompe-l'Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1658

Adriaen van der Spelt (Dutch, 1630–1673)
Frans van Mieris (Dutch, 1635–1681)

Adrien van der Spelt’s splendid garland displays about 20 floral varieties—including a tulip, a 16th-century import from Persia that would eventually become an icon of Dutch culture. The deceptively realistic blue curtain, painted by Frans van Mieris, refers to the historical strategy for protecting paintings but also to the tale of Parhassius, a skilled Greek artist who fooled his rival into attempting to pull back a curtain painted onto one of his pictures. Examples of collaborative works by Dutch artists from this period are rare, perhaps due to the intense competition created by the region’s thriving art market.

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

Artist: Adriaen van der Spelt
Title: Trompe-l'Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1658
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower left: van der Spelt.1658
Dimensions: 46.5 × 63.9 cm (18 1/4 × 25 1/8 in.); Framed: 69.2 × 86.7 × 8.3 cm (27 1/4 × 34 1/8 × 3 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Wirt D. Walker Fund
Reference Number: 1949.585
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/66042/manifest.json

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Peter Hecht in De Hollandse fijnschilders: Van Gerard Dou tot Adriaen van der Werff, exh. cat. (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, 1989-90), 42-3 n. 7 under cat. no. 5.
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Gilbert Creighton, “Grapes, Curtains, Human Beings: The Theory of Missed Mimesis,” in Künstlerischer Austausch: Akten des XXVIII. Internationalen Kongresses für Kunstgeschichte, Berlin, 15.-20. Juli 1992 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 414 and fig. 7.
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Collection Catalogue, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt, 3rd. ed. (New York, The Leiden Collection, 2020- ), n. 58, accessed March 23, 2021, https://theleidencollection.com/essays/frans-van-mieris-the-elder-and-his-four-leiden-patrons.
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Emily Braun and Elizabeth Cowling, Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition exh. cat. (New York : The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022), 88-89, 95 pl. 3, 248.

Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, La nature morte de l’antiquité à nos jours, April—June 1952, cat. no. 48, as van der Spelt.
New York, Wildenstein, Magic of Flowers in Painting, April 13—May 15, 1954, cat. no. 76, as van der Spelt
Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Edge: European Frames 1300-1900, Oct. 17—Dec.14, 1986, cat. no. 35, as van der Spelt.
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Great Dutch Paintings from America, Sept. 28, 1990–Jan. 13, 1991, cat. no. 57; San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, February 16, 1991–May 5, 1991.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe l’Oeil Painting in Europe and America, October 13, 2002–March 2, 2003, cat. no. 10.
The Hague, Mauritshuis, Frans van Mieris 1635-1681, Oct. 1, 2005–Jan. 12, 2006, cat. no. 16; Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, February 26–May 21, 2006.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Silk Road and Beyond: Travel Trade and Transformation, September 30, 2006-April 22, 2007, no cat.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, Oct. 20, 2022 - Jan. 22, 2023, pl. 3.

Henric Bugge van Ring (died 1669), Leyden, by 1667 [his inventory of that year, “een stuk met bloemen van der Spelt en een gordijntgen daer bij staende van Mieris” (A piece with flowers by van der Spelt and a little curtain with it by Mieris)]. John Webb, London; sold, Phillips, London, July 8–9, 1828, lot 70 as van der Spelt. George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland (d. 1833), Stafford House, London [described by Passavant 1833]; by descent to George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, London (d. 1861) to at least 1854 [described by Waagen 1837 and 1854]. Vitale Bloch, Paris, by 1949; sold to Art Institute of Chicago, 1949.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.