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Still Life with Oysters, Cookies, and Comfits
Osias Beert (Flemish, about 1580–1623)
about 1610
Medium/Technique
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
72.4 × 108.6 cm (28 1/2 × 42 3/4 in.)
Framed: 97.8 × 132.1 cm (38 1/2 × 52 in.)
Framed: 97.8 × 132.1 cm (38 1/2 × 52 in.)
Credit Line
Promised gift of Susan and Matthew Weatherbie, in support of the Center for Netherlandish Art
Accession NumberL-R 82.2021
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsPaintings
Sweet, white treats made from Brazilian sugar. Sugar-coated cinnamon sticks from Southeast Asia. Blue-and-white porcelain bowls from China. Orange quince paste from Portugal, almonds from Spain, and currants from Greece. And (hopefully) local oysters. Beert spent his career painting Antwerp’s edible empire, immortalizing the bounty of a trade network that brought riches from across the oceans to his hometown on the North Sea.
ProvenanceBy 1983, private collection, Belgium [see note 1]. December 9, 1987, anonymous sale, Sotheby's, London, lot 64, sold to Galerie Hoogsteder, The Hague; October 1988, sold by Hoogsteder to Susan and Matthew Weatherbie, Boston.
NOTES:
[1] See Edith Greindl, Les Peintres Flamands de Nature Morte au XVIIe siècle (Brussels, 1983), cat. no. 4, fig. 15.
NOTES:
[1] See Edith Greindl, Les Peintres Flamands de Nature Morte au XVIIe siècle (Brussels, 1983), cat. no. 4, fig. 15.