23.000 €
A flower still life on a stone ledge
Oil on canvas : 68,8 X 54,4 cm
Signed bottom left “PH vkouwenbergh.”
(the letters PH are linked)
(the first part of the signature is painted in brown, the last letters, “ergh”, in black)
Frame : 90,2 X 74,2 cm
In short
Philip van Kouwenbergh was an early 18th century Amsterdam flower still life specialist who rarely signed his paintings; our painting is fully signed.
About Philip van Kouwenbergh
Dutch painter
Amsterdam 1671 – 1729 Amsterdam
Rare painter of still lifes.
He also painted a few woodland scenes with ruins, flowers and insects.
Son of the sculptor Frans van Kouwenbergh.
Philip spent his complete career in Amsterdam.
Philip van Kouwenbergh almost never signed his paintings in full; some are monogrammed ‘PK’ or PHK’. Some of his paintings must go hidden under erroneous attributions to for example the better known Flemish still life painter Jan van Kessel (1626 – 1679).
In 1988 Fred Meijer of the RKD, The Hague, published an article in Oud Holland, P. 318 – 321 about Philip van Kouwenbergh.
Fred Meijer found no information about van Kouwenbergh’s artistic training, but seeing the similarities in style and composition he thinks he was very probably a pupil of Elias van den Broeck (1649/50 – 1708) circa 1690. Van den Broeck moved at an early age with his parents from Antwerp to Amsterdam, studied under Jan Davidsz. de Heem in Utrecht in 1669 and followed his master to Antwerp, where he became master in the Painter’s Guild in 1673. He returned to Amsterdam in 1685, where he remained for the rest of his life.
About our painting
Our painting is one of the rare fully signed works by the painter.
Its beautiful composition and masterly execution stand close to a smaller, unsigned painting, rightly attributed to our painter by Fred Meijer, that was sold at Christie’s South Kensington in London for just under 25.000 € eighteen years ago.
Why should you buy this painting?
Because it is a fully signed Late Baroque masterpiece by Philip van Kouwenbergh.
