SP 5160
EDWAERT COLLIER
Breda, active before 1663 – 1708 London
A trompe l’oeil still life of documents and objects stuck behind ribbons upon wooden boards
Signed and dated centre left: Edwart Collier/1695.
Canvas: 24 7/8 x 20 in / 63.2 x 50.8 cm
Frame size: 29 5/8 x 24 ¾ in / 75.2 x 62.9 cm
Provenance:
Ronald A Lee Esq., by 1954
The Lily and Edmond J Safra Collection
Exhibited:
Sheffield, Graves Art Gallery, The Eye Deceived (Trompe l’oeil), October-November 1954 (lent by Ronald A Lee)
Literature:
F Davis, ‘A page for collectors: The Eye Deceived’, The Illustrated London News, 30th October 1954, illus.
Edwaert Collier was born in Breda in the province of Brabant. He may well have received his training as a painter in Haarlem, where he was a guild member, according to the list of members drawn up by Vincent van der Vinne in the eighteenth century on the basis of seventeenth-century records now lost. Collier probably painted his earliest work in Haarlem where, already in 1669, three of his paintings were recorded in an inventory. In or before 1667, he must have moved to Leiden, where his residence is substantially documented from that year until 1693. Subsequently he left for London, where he appears to have remained until c.1702, judging from inscriptions (on letters) in his paintings. In 1702 he appears to have returned to Leiden, staying there until 1706, but a last known work dated 1707 is signed with the addition fecit London. His burial in St. James’s church, Piccadilly was recorded on 9th September 1708.
Edwaert Collier’s substantial oeuvre consists of three types of still lifes, in addition to a small number of genre paintings and portraits, as well as the occasional history scene. Among his still lifes, his compositions with a vanitas connotation, of which the painting discussed here is an example, are the most frequent. Less frequently do his ‘traditional’ still lifes of smoking utensils or victuals occur. Third – from a chronological point of view, since Collier appears to have taken up the subject only after 1690 – are the trompe l’oeil paintings of letter racks and of prints displayed on wooden boards.
Collier’s earliest paintings of this type have a horizontal format and are strongly reminiscent of examples by the Dordrecht painter Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678) from the 1660s, which may well have been his initial source of inspiration. Very few other painters took on the subject and Collier seems to have coined it as his own[i]. Judging from the large number of examples still in existence, they must have been extremely popular, not in the least in England, where Collier appears to have produced the majority of this type of his still lifes. Their deceiving illusionism must have appealed strongly to Collier’s public – as they still do – and they may well occasionally have been placed among real office paraphernalia for greater effect.
Letter boards by Edwaert Collier are known with inscribed dates of 1692 and later. On a painting of this kind, the date on a document portrayed in it is not always necessarily the date of execution of the painting. The artist quite often included documents signed or printed at an earlier date. However, those dates can at least be read as an indication of the date of execution and in any case they can be regarded as a date post quem. In the case of the still life discussed here, the date 1695 on the letter can most probably safely be taken for the date of its execution. The booklet displayed next to it, the Apollo Anglicanus or English Apollo, is dated 1694. This seventeen-page booklet was a popular edition on astronomy and astrology by the ‘student in the physical and mathematical sciences’ Richard Saunders, first published as early as 1654 and reprinted annually[ii]. It discusses the positions of the stars throughout the year, the tides and other related phenomena. It is a similar kind of booklet to the almanacs Collier often included in such compositions. The painter has followed the layout of the title page quite closely, but has changed the size of the font in some places, probably in order to keep the text in his painting legible. Collier included the booklet in at least two other still lifes of letter boards; one copy is dated 1676, the other 1701[iii]. The first also includes other motifs from this painting: the sealed letter with a number 26, the quill, the magnifying glass, the stick of sealing wax and the wax seal stamp[iv]. A similar vertical letter board from the same year as the one discussed here (signed and dated on the letter Edwart Collier/Anno 1695) also includes the numbered letter (this time NO 25), the quill, the sealing wax and stamp, as well as the comb and the ‘Memorie’ note[v]. While Collier often included the same objects in his still lifes, he seems to have relished arranging them in a different but equally attractive manner time and time again, maintaining their natural and spontaneous haphazard impression.
Fred G Meijer, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistoriche Documentatie, The Hague.
EDWAERT COLLIER
Breda, active before 1663 – 1708 London
Edwaert Collier was born in Breda in the province of Brabant. He may well have received his training as a painter in Haarlem, where he was a guild member, according to the list of members drawn up by Vincent van der Vinne in the eighteenth century on the basis of seventeenth-century records now lost. Collier probably painted his earliest work in Haarlem where, already in 1669, three of his paintings were recorded in an inventory. In or before 1667, he must have moved to Leiden, where his residence is substantially documented from that year until 1693. Subsequently he left for London, where he appears to have remained until c.1702, judging from inscriptions (on letters) in his paintings. In 1702 he appears to have returned to Leiden, staying there until 1706, but a last known work dated 1707 is signed with the addition ‘fecit London’. His burial in St. James’s church, Piccadilly was recorded on 9th September 1708.
Edwaert Collier’s substantial oeuvre consists of three types of still lifes, in addition to a small number of genre paintings and portraits as well as the occasional history scene. Among his still lifes, his compositions with a vanitas connotation, of which the painting discussed here is an example, are the most frequent. Less frequently do his ‘traditional’ still lifes of smoking utensils or victuals occur. Third – from a chronological point of view, since Collier appears to have taken up the subject only after 1690 – are the trompe l’oeil paintings of letter racks and of prints displayed on wooden boards.
[i] Other painters, such as Cornelis Brisé (1622-1665/70) and Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts (active 1657-1675 or later) who produced substanially larger and more complicated letter boards, do not appear to have inspired Collier directly.
[ii] Copies can be found on the internet as e-books, among them one printed in 1694.
[iii] Both horizontal compositions, the first in the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, the second with Richard Green in 1997. While the Apollo in the Glasgow painting is dated 1676, in view of the strong similarities to the present painting and other work from the mid-1690s, it was probably excuted around 1695 as well.
[iv] The tall bronze object at lower left is probably a seal stamp used to model such seals as the round one on the letter bearing Collier’s name.
[v] Oil on canvas, 23 ½ x 18 ½ in / 59.7 x 47 cm, offered at Sotheby’s New York, 14th October 1998, lot 169, colour illus.